This article was first published in 2015. We’re still hungry after it.
Depending on how you feel about eel, smelt, anchovies, and snails, the Italian Catholic tradition’s Feast of the Seven Fishes is meant to be a penitential supper. However, the feast (also known as Il Cenone or La Vigilia) is a bivalve bacchanalia, a crustacean celebration, and a shrimp, squid, and scallop saturnalia for the majority of Italians and Italian-Americans. However, how well-versed are you in the custom?
On Wednesday, September 21, 2022, Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen at Caesars Atlantic City served crispy skin salmon.NJ Advance Media for NJ.com | Tim Hawk
Few agree on the reasoning behind the number seven
According to Robert Germano’s 2005 book The Eve of the Seven Fishes: Christmas Cooking in the Peasant Tradition, the emphasis on fish stems from the centuries-old custom of abstaining from meat on Fridays in remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice.However, there isn’t much consensus over the reasoning for the figure. The seven Catholic sacraments, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Seven Hills of Rome, or the seven days it took for Jesus and Mary to get to Bethlehem are some of the theories put out by German.
Clam appetizer on Wednesday, September 11, 2024 at Valenca, 665 Monroe Ave, Elizabeth.For NJ Advance Media, Jeff Rhode
Some families go above and beyond the seven
While some prepare ten types of seafood and shellfish for the stations of the cross, most stick with an odd number since they’re considered luckier in Italy, according to Janice Mancuso, a writer and publisher of books by Italian-Americans. Some people do 13 for the 12 apostles plus Jesus Christ, or 9 for the trinity quadrupled. And the Oxford Companion to Italian Food’s incredibly ambitious interpretation of 21 is the trinity multiplied by the seven sacraments.
10/14/12 — Giumarello’s in Haddon Township’s Westmont neighborhood serves Thai Chili Mussels, which are made with roasted tomatoes, shrimp, cilantro, sweet chili, and coconut milk.Steinhardt, Avi
There s no agreement which seven fishes must be used
Many people think that without baccala (salt cod), calamari, eel, scungilli (snails), and smelt, La Vigilia wouldn’t be the same. Others add whiting and anchovies to the list. However, squid and shrimp are the most popular items at Peter’s Fish Market in Midland Park. Also popular among today s cooks: Clams, lobster, salmon, scallops and meaty swordfish, tuna or halibut steaks.
Lou Palma, 84, has been preparing the Feast of the Seven Fishes for 40 years at his Montclair home, although now his sons are starting to take over over the tradition. He wouldn t dream of a feast without baccala, dried cod that must be soaked and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed again, he laughs. After that, he boils the fish and serves it with a salad that includes lemon, olive oil, vinegar peppers, and olives.
Father Terry Bagatin of St. Peter’s church on James St. prepares his recipe for Baccala Alla Vincentina ( a cod dish).
In Italy, eel is a major player in the meal
The thick, powerfully wrigglycapitone, as it is known in Italy, has traditionally been a sign of wealth, writes Katherine Wilson in her new memoirOnly in Naples: Learning to Live and Eat in an Italian Family,in which she describes a 5-foot-long eel still thrashing after its head was chopped off. (The chunks were variously pickled, fried and served in a tomato sauce.) In America, the only demand for live eel is at Christmas, says Steve Sclafani ofPeter s Fish Marketin Midland Park. The market brings in several hundred pounds of live eel for the holiday, bringing in a special refrigerated trailer to store the eel, which can stay alive out of the water for three days if kept at the proper temperature.
Scungilli and calamari marinara.Staten Island Advance
Scungilli also gets its moment in the sun during La Vigilia
Scungilli is the chewy sea snail also known as whelk or conch. Italian food doyenne Lidia Bastianich praises its wonderful texture and flavor, but the snail has its detractors, among them the travel writer Bill Bryson ( If you have never dined on this marine delicacy, you may get the same experience by finding an old golf ball, removing the cover, and eating what remains. ) The traditional way to serve scungilli, typically available frozen or canned and already tenderized, is boiled and then chilled in a salad with celery, olives, garlic, parsley and red pepper flakes with oil and vinegar.
Lasagna Bolognese at Amerigo in Berkeley Heights(Stephanie Rizzolo | for NJ Advance Media)
In Italy, there are certain Christmas dishes associated with certain fish or shellfish
In Naples, baccala is served in tomato sauce, while in Basilicata, it is cooked with potato and onions, according to the Oxford Companion. In Lombardy and Piedmont, lasagna is sauced with anchovies, garlic, sage, rosemary, bay leaves, olive oil, butter and Parmesan. The Romans serve spaghetti with anchovies, while in Naples, it s vermicelli with clams, mussels or razor clams. Smelt is battered and fried, while anchovies are often served as a salad with oranges and hard-boiled eggs.
As for eel, in Venice it is left unskinned and spit-roasted with bay leaves. They say … there is something tranquilizing about eel cooked this way, putting even the grumpiest person in a suitably benevolent mood for Christmas. (Consider this if you expect political disputes to break out over dinner.)
Some cooks prepare a minimum of seven courses
Others are fine combining fishes.
Any seven fishes that you can come across, offers Sclafani, and anyway you gotta to do it.
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