An Italian Christmas
An Italian Christmas revolves around faith, family and an abundance of food. Throughout the holiday season, food plays an integral part in the celebration. Women spend days, sometimes weeks preparing their family’s favorite recipes that have often been handed down for generations. Every region, city, and country town have their own ritual foods for the Christmas season that are prepared in great quantity to be shared with family and friends.
Although the season may start at different times depending on the region, December 24th and 25th are the most important days, often involving a two-day feast. Traditionally due to religious beliefs, the Christmas Eve meal is a plentiful fish feast, with course after course being offered. A typical Christmas Eve meal might include an antipasto seafood salad, or an offering of seafood and vegetable antipasti, followed by a pasta dish or two such as spaghetti with tuna, fettuccine with smoked salmon, or perhaps a risotto with mixed seafood. Next come the main entrees, such as baccala’ (a dried salted cod dish ), the traditional eel, a light baked salmon, or a wonderful stuffed trout. A myriad of side dishes are added to complement these dishes such as rosemary roasted potatoes and other seasonal vegetables. A salad will follow to cleanse the palette, then the desserts are offered. Christmas desserts can be a selection of Italian cookies, filled with figs or nuts, buttery fruit tarts, or fried and sugared sweets like zeppole, or struffoli. Usually, as well as a vast selection of sweets, a selection of fruits, both dried and fresh are offered with a assortment of nuts.
On Christmas Day, the feast continues, and is often started with a stuffed pasta, such as tortellini or cappelletti, most often served in a meat broth. The next course may be a stuffed capon, or a goose, in northern Italy while in the south, the seafood feast is continued. The meal is completed with a number of complementary side dishes such as artichokes cooked in white wine, or a gratin of vegetables roasted in the oven. Desserts will be offered once again, particularly the famous Christmas sweet breads, panettone in particular. It might be stuffed with ice cream, served with a chocolate sauce or served plain with a sweet wine. Other Christmas sweets which have bread in their name-pane speziato, panforte, or pandoro, are not really breads at all, but more typical of a sweet bread filled with spices, nuts and dried fruits. These breads are often offered as gifts throughout the holiday season, and it wasn’t unusual for our family to have almost a dozen panettone in our cupboards when the season was over.
An Italian Christmas is one of abundance. No matter what the regional differences may be, there is always lots of food, love and family. Whole families come together to celebrate with traditions that have been handed down for generations, to share old traditions, and to begin new ones.
Buon Natale!
Deborah Mele 2011
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there will be 8 courses of mostly fish…we start with lentil soup with raisins and chestnuts, all the rest is fish. This year there will be some new things to give a nod to local and sustainable. Sharing it with some “newbies” with a big smile on my face.
Bunal Natalie!!!
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Buon Natale to you and yours also. Even though I am not Italian, I grew up in an Italian neighborhood. Holiday celebrations were always steeped in tradition, and complimented with fine foods.
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Our family always did the fish Christmas Eve and I don’t know how my Grandmother did it all at her age. Of course the adults helped – and we grandchildren were cautioned to stay out of mischief…but we didn’t. We would always discover the big bowl with the zeppolis – she would hide it in a different place every year, and Grandma would come after us with the broom yelling at us in Italian and laughing. We loved the fish so much that after much coaxing from her children, she agreed to do the fish again every New Year’s Eve too. (No complaints from anyone!!) Luckily my Mom taught me how to clean each fish and cook all the traditional foods. One year Mom took her baccala salad to a Christmas party. We didn’t know that a CIA trained chef who worked at a famous NYC restaurant would be a guest there too. He tasted her salad and went crazy . I was so proud of her!! Merry Christmas everyone!!!
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Deborah Reply:
December 4th, 2012 at 4:29 pm
I love reading about other Italian families holiday traditions, thanks for sharing.
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I am planning on making Soup de Pece Christmas Eve with lobster, clams, mussels and squid. I have been researching recipes and am wondering if you have any suggestions. I’m thinking of cooking the lobster in the sauce. What order would you cook them in. I’d love and appreciate any help you can give me. Thank you, Rosemary
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Deborah Reply:
December 4th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
You might check out my seafood soup recipe.
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We never had the traditional meal growing up because my dad had to have it and hated it.
It sounds cool, though–kind of like the traditional Chinese meals for fancy occasions.
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Deborah,
Do you have a panettone recipe?
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Deborah Reply:
December 5th, 2012 at 7:44 am
Panettone
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Deborah,
I COME FROM AN ITALIAN FAMILY AND WE ALWAYS HAD BIG CHRISTMAS EVE AND CHRISTMAS DAY DINNERS WITH LOTS OF FOOD, FAMILY, FAITH AND LOTS OF LOVE. YOUR WORDS ARE PERFECT AND BRING BACK SO MANY GOOD MEMORIES FOR ME. MY GRANDMOTHER AND MOTHER HAVE PASSED
AWAY AND THEY ALWAYS MADE ZEPPOLE WITH RAISENS OR ANCHOVIES IN THEM ON CHRISTMAS EVE. WE HAVE NOT TASTED THEM SINCE MY MOM’S PASSING IN 2004. I THINK THE RECIPE THAT I HAVE NEEDS HER LOVING HANDS IN THE DOUGH TO MAKE THEM TURN OUT GOOD!!! IF YOU HAVE AN EASY RECIPE FOR ZEPPOLE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
HAVE A BLESSED CHRISTMAS AND LOVE, LOVE YOUR SITE!!! TERRI
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It’s funny, because while reading through the article, I was smiling for myself thinking that although me and my family are Canadians, our Christmas is Italian! We always cook or bake several kinds of fish (including our favourite halibut), special salads and of course more than a dozen of types of sweets (both cakes and cookies). Every year after dinner, I think that my belly will explode.
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Looking for a recipe my aunt always made at Christmas. It was a ravioli shaped filled with chocolate and soaked in honey.
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Deborah Reply:
December 30th, 2012 at 4:37 pm
Sorry, I do not have that recipe.
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