The Delicious History Behind The Feast Of The Seven Fishes

If you are not Italian-American, you may not have heard of the traditional Christmastime meal of The Feast of the Seven Fishes. For those of Italian-American descent - Ayyy Paisan! You ready for the Feast? What is this? I'll explain.

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The Feast of the Seven Dishes (Festa dei setta pesci) is a traditional Italian-American feast of seven (Or more, or less) fish dishes on Christmas Eve. Vigilia is the other name given to this feast of seafood dishes, and it's origins can be dated back to Italian immigrants along the Eastern seaboard between 1880-1930. Why fish dishes? Catholics cannot eat meat on fasting/holy days, and Christmas Eve is one of the holiest, so, no beef.

WHAT ARE THE MAIN INGREDIENTS OF THE SEVEN DISH FEAST?

As I said before, you do not have to prepare seven dishes, some do more, some do less, so, take your pick of these traditional dishes:

• Baccala
• Clams
• Calamari
• Scallops
• Eel
• Octopus
• Oysters
• Scungilli
• Lobsters
• Shrimp

Why seven? there are seven sacraments of the Catholic Church:

• Baptism
• Confirmation
• Eucharist
• Reconciliation
• Anointing of the Sick
• Holy Orders
• Matrimony

The Feast of the Seven Fishes was something that we looked forward to every Christmas Eve, my family used to make enormous shrimp cocktails, linguini with clams, clams on the half shell, calamari rings, baccala, and we would usually have lobster as our entree. Some years we'd have the energy to make it down to midnight mass, but mostly there were satisfied burps instead of amens. Seven different seafood dishes, are you up for the challenge?