Fishy Feasts for Christmas Eve

Feast of way more than 7 fishes

For those of you getting ready to cook for the holidays, here is a bonus post to help you out.

Every year I get questions about The Feast of the Seven Fishes. The whole tradition of eating exactly seven fishes is an Italian American thing. Where the number 7 comes from, nobody knows. But eating fish on the day before Christmas is very much an Italian (actually Catholic) thing. The day before Christmas was considered a day when you ate no meat. Although in theory this is supposed to be a ‘meager’ meal, in reality it is a fishy feast. And the number of fish-laden platters usually goes far beyond seven.

For many years we were down in Bari, with Domenico’s mom, for the holidays. Since Bari is a port town we literally walked across the street to buy our fish. Lately we have been in Rome, but the menu more or less remains the same.

We start out in the living room with nibbles and cocktails. Then move to the table with a huge assortment of antipasti. Next up is pasta, followed by many traditional desserts (none of which I bake myself).

Here follows my menus from past years, which you can adapt or change around. It was fun going through the photos of the last few years, so I’ll share each year’s menu with as many links for recipes as possible.