On the Seventh Day of Christmas, the Italians gave to me
- The Feast of the Seven Fishes
- Six cows stolen
- Five suspected terrorists out on bail
- Four Vikings in love boat trouble
- 3 made up stories
- 2 Strippers in Santa Hats
- and Tookie lit up like a Christmas Tree
Nothing funny or weird here, folks. Just a story I thought was rather interesting, and season appropriate
Italy celebrates Christmas Eve with the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a meatless meal honoring the wait, La Vigilia de Natale, leading up to the midnight birth of the baby Jesus. Meatless it is, but joyless it isn’t.
Centuries have refined this triumphal but homey cavalcade of seafood dishes that draws on the bounty of the Boot’s long coastline and fuels a boisterous party over many hours among family and friends. The seven fishes used in the celebration are popularly thought to reflect the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church.
The components are age-old. Choose any seven: anchovies and sardines, dried salt cod and eels, squid and octopus, shrimp, mussels, oysters and clams. And there are plenty of pasta and vegetable dishes, finishing always with the family’s signature sweets and, until recently, a walk to midnight Mass. If the feast is nurtured in its most traditional form around Naples and south, it may be held dearer still in landlocked Pittsburgh.
Read the rest, very interesting.
