Just want to wish everyone here a very Merry Christmas and prosperous New Year. We'll be celebrating with an Italian traditional Feast of the Seven Fishes. I grew up on this tradition at home and about 5 or 6 years ago, we decided to carry it on down here in Georgia. We're expecting 21 folks on the 24th this year and every year we have old friends, family and new folks joining us for the first time. It's a wonderful evening of food and good cheer. Here's the menu for this year, and yes I pretty much make everything from scratch.
1 Shrimp Cocktail. Served at the table
2 Baked Clams on the Half Shell. Served at the table
3 Bruschetta. Served at the table.
4 Pasta with Fish Sauce
5 Clams
6 Mussels
7 Fish (Flounder / Sole / Catfish / Perch)
8 Shrimp
9 Calamari tentacles
10 Wally's Steamed Lobster Tails
11 Randall's Ordinary Scallops
12 Fried Calamari
13 Fried Flounder
14 Grilled Tuna with Pesto Sauce
15 Pasta with Marinara Sauce
16 Escarole with Pine Nuts
17 Breaded Cauliflower
18 Spicy Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms
19 Cippolinis & Potatoes
20 Italian Meat and Cheese platters. Mix of Italian meats, hard Italian cheese and Prosciutto & Mozzarella slices. Served at the table.
21 Roasted Red Peppers with Fresh Mozzarella & Basil Served at the table
22 Stuffed Hot Cherry Peppers Served at the table
23 Olive Salad Served at the table
24 Coffee
26 Almond Biscotti brushed with Chocolate
27 Struffoli
28 Tortoni
29 Frittelle Ricotta, Uvetta E Cioccolato
30 Assorted traditional Biscardi family cookies.
Now my family did not make quite so many things, but then we didn't have any vegetarians to cook for! My wife is a vegetarian so I added more vegetable and non-fish items to the menu and it just keeps growing.
Each year we change out a few things, like the Grilled Tuna with Pesto and the Escarole with Pine nuts are new this year. The ricotta fritters are also something new and I'll be frying those up at the last minute right before we serve dessert. That will be something new!
My dad got me a set of Shun knives for Christmas and they are making my life so much easier in the kitchen! If you've never had a good, and I mean GOOD, set of knives you have no idea what you're missing. These are the same knives Alton Brown uses on Good Eats and they are the sharpest, and have the best fitting handles of any knife I've ever held.
This year I'm also handing out a recipe book to everyone who attends along with some history of the meal. Someone suggested this a while back and I finally remembered to do it this year. If any of you would like any or all of the recipes we use for the meal, just let me know, I love sharing our family traditions.
From our family to your family, Happy Happy Holidays!!! And if you're interested, here's some history on the Feast of the Seven Fishes
Southern Italians around the world celebrate Christmas Eve with a Feast of the Seven Fishes, also known as La Vigilia (Italian: "the vigil"). It is a meal that typically consists of seven different seafood dishes. Some Italian families have been known to celebrate with 9, 11 or 13 different seafood dishes. This celebration is a commemoration of the wait, Vigilia di Natale, for the midnight birth of the baby Jesus.
The tradition of eating seafood on Christmas Eve dates from the medieval Catholic tradition of abstinence--in this case, refraining from the consumption of meat or milk products--on Fridays and specific holy days. As no meat or butter could be used, observant Catholics would instead eat fish, typically fried in oil.
There are many hypotheses for what the number "7" relates to, one being the number of Sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. Another theory is that seven is a number representing perfection: the traditional Biblical number for divinity is three, and for Earth is four, and the combination of these numbers, seven, represents God on Earth, or Jesus Christ.
Walter Biscardi, Jr. www.biscardicreative.com
