EVERY FEW YEARS, I WRITE OF THE CHRISTMAS EVE ITALIAN SEVEN FISH MEAL. A SLIGHT VARIATION EACH YEAR. THIS IS THE LATEST. ONLY ONE YEAR OLD. PUBLISHED LAST YEAR ON DECEMBER 3. ENJOY!
I’m of Italian extraction. My mom was born in Italy, my father of oldsters who immigrated from Italy. The seven fish meal Christmas Eve is an Italian-American custom. From my perspective, one of the best meal of the 12 months! No comparability!
I write about it right now, Christmas Eve 2024. The meal preparation started three weeks in the past for the meal this night. A meal that fed 25-30 folks.
One of many seven dishes is baccala. Baccala is cod fish. That dry laborious salted piece of fish. It must be softened and made tasty for the Christmas Eve feast.
My former spouse made the perfect seven fish meal. Should give her credit score. Her work three weeks early. She would reduce the cod fish into small items and place it in a big bowl buried in olive oil, salt, pepper, parsley, and different herbs. Cowl the bowl and place it on high of the fridge, not in it. Daily for the following three weeks she would take the bowl down, combine the contents and add no matter she thought was required. On the finish of three weeks and on Christmas Eve, the bacccala would soften in your mouth.
Baked clams have been one other fish dish. We’d take pleasure in them in a two hour cocktail fest previous to dinner. Along with shrimp. Shrimp two methods. One chilly as in shrimp cocktail. The opposite battered in bread crumbs and eggs and fried in oil.
The shrimp was an alternative choice to mussels. I by no means noticed a mussel until I started touring to Florida. I doubt they even might be bought in Utica again then.
Smelts one other fish dish. Smelts fried in oil until crisp. The entire piece, head included, then eaten. Smelts have been tiny and skinny. Concerning the measurement of an individual’s little finger however thinner. I cherished smelts! One in every of my absolute favorites!
Scungilli. The Italian method of claiming snails.
Calamari. Such as you wouldn’t imagine. My spouse would purchase the tentacles already cleaned. Being fastidious, she would reclean every bit. She would stuff them with bread crumbs and egg and what have you ever. Sew every finish with needle and thread. Cook dinner them first by boiling. Then place them in a crimson meat sauce to additional cook dinner. Lastly, the contents poured over an enormous dish of macaroni. Pasta a time period by no means heard again then in an Italian home. The stuffed calamari was to die for!
The ultimate and seventh dish have been lobster tails. Maine lobster tails. Large ones. Boiled after which broiled. Served lined with heaping parts of melted butter.
Desert consisted of Italian cookies which my spouse began baking about the identical time as she started making ready the baccala. She refrigerated them until Christmas Eve.
The meal took a superb 5-6 hours to devour from cocktail hour by means of dessert. Every little thing gradual and leisurely. Household time. A lot laughter and recollections of earlier days in all our lives. Recollections particularly of oldsters and family members useless.
A meal to recollect! I’ve not loved one since 2006. Hopefully will take pleasure in yet another earlier than I move on.
Get pleasure from your Christmas Eve! And have a really Merry Christmas vacation!