For Italian-Americans, the Feast of the Seven Fishes—a nostalgia-fueled, hours-long dinner consisting of at least seven different types of seafood—is the defining Christmas Eve tradition. Firmly rooted in Italy’s Roman Catholic background, the Festa dei Sette Pesci is a delectable blend of the sacred and secular, the old world and the new.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes may go hand-in-hand with Roman Catholicism, but it’s not a religious “feast day.” There is no such thing as the “Feast of the Seven Fishes” in the Roman Catholic calendar [PDF]. (In fact, in Roman Catholicism, a feast day has nothing to do with gorging yourself and everything to do with reflecting on and celebrating an important aspect of the faith, often the life of a saint.) The tradition’s name merely takes after the lay definition of feast: that is, there’s a lot of food on the table!
2. Traditionally, December 24 was a day to avoid food.
In the Catholic liturgical calendar, there are special days of abstinence (where followers are advised to avoid meat) and days of fasting (where followers are advised to reduce their food intake, usually to just one meal a day). Before reforms were made in the 1960s, December 24—what Roman Catholics call The Vigil of the Nativity of the Lord—was a day to fast and abstain, with worshippers generally allowed to break the fast in the evening. The Feast of the Seven Fishes, then, seems like an obvious solution to the circ*mstances: You have a big, hungry Catholic-Italian family that hasn’t touched food all day. None of them are allowed to eat meat. What else is there to do but prepare a giant evening meal of pasta and seafood?
While the tradition of enjoying a large meatless Christmas Eve meal was (and remains) common across Italy—as well as many other Roman Catholic-dominated countries—the origins of the Feast of the Seven Fishes has its roots in the country's southern region. The area, which is surrounded by bountiful coastline, has been known for its seafood for generations. It's also historically poorer than the rest of Italy, with locals preferring fish because of its relative affordability.
4. The Unification of Italy ultimately helped bring the Feast of the Seven Fishes to America.
In 1861, the regions of the Italian peninsula joined to form a single nation. The states of the south (what had formerly been the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies) would suffer for it. The new government began allocating most of its resources to nurturing the north, causing poverty and organized crime in the south—which were already problems—to worsen. The situation plunged southern Italy into such poverty that approximately 4 million people from the region moved to America between 1880 and 1924. It’s no surprise that those immigrants took their tradition of big, fishy Christmas Eve dinners with them, making it a popular Italian-American celebration today.
Those immigrants, however, probably didn’t call it the “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” More likely, they called it some variant of La Cena della vigilia, Il Cenone, La vigilia di Natale, or simply La Vigilia. The current name of the feast—and the practice of making exactly seven types of fish—comes from the new world. "As an Italian, I must admit I hadn’t heard about [the Feast of Seven Fishes] … and most of my Italian friends haven’t either," Katia Amore wrote in Italy Magazine.
6. It’s unclear what the “seven fishes” signify.
Nobody knows where the “seven fishes” moniker came from. Many insist it’s a religious symbol. The number seven, after all, appears hundreds of times in the Bible and is significant in the Roman Catholic Church: It may represent the seven sacraments. Or the seven virtues. Or perhaps it commemorates the day Christians believe God rested. Others say the number is just a good marketing tool used by restaurants. (Indeed, the earliest newspaper article we found containing the phrase “Feast of the Seven Fishes” is a 1983 advertisem*nt for a restaurant in Philadelphia.)
“Talk with 10 Italian-Americans about the special feast, and you could come up with 10 dinner menus, plus a varying selection of fish,” Gerald Etter wrote forThe Philadelphia Inquirer. And that’s the beauty of the feast: There are no hard and fast rules. Some people include as many as 12 or 13 dishes, including mussels in spaghetti, fried calamari, anchovies, sardines, whiting with lemon, scungilli, lobster fra diavolo, capellini with tuna sauce, branzino, sole, and shrimp scampi. Many insist on eel. (“You can’t have Christmas Eve without eel,” John Tenaglia tells the Inquirer.) Another almost universal recommendation is baccalà—dried, salted cod. But the most important ingredients, of course, are friends and family.
A version of this story originally ran in 2018; it has been updated for 2021.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American Christmas Eve tradition featuring a seafood-heavy meal. Its origins trace back to Southern Italy, where abstaining from meat on Christmas Eve was a Catholic tradition. The number seven is symbolic, representing the seven sacraments or the seven days of creation.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American Christmas Eve tradition featuring a seafood-heavy meal. Its origins trace back to Southern Italy, where abstaining from meat on Christmas Eve was a Catholic tradition. The number seven is symbolic, representing the seven sacraments or the seven days of creation.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes, or “Festa dei Sette Pesci”, is a Christmas Eve tradition in many Italian households. Most popular in Southern Italy and in Italian-American homes, this Christmas Eve feast stems from Catholics abstaining from meat in commemoration of waiting for the birth of baby Jesus.
It can be traced back to the turn of the 19th century, when Italian immigration to the U.S. was at its peak. Homesick transplants saw the tradition of eating seafood on la vigilia as a unique tether to Italy and began celebrating it as such.
What is the significance of the Feast of the Seven Fishes? There's no real consensus on what the seven fishes signify—some people claim the number seven symbolizes the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church while others say it's meant to represent the seven days of the week or the seven hills of Rome.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American tradition to ring in Christmas Eve, when Roman Catholics celebrate the midnight birth of Jesus, known in Italian as “La Viglia.” Fish is a traditional ingredient in the Christmas Eve dinner because custom calls for the eschewing of red meat leading up to the holiday.
There is no such thing as the Feast of Seven Fishes on the Roman Catholic calendar. There never has been an official feast with this name in Italy or the United States. In fact, most sources agree that serving fish on Christmas Eve is mainly practiced by Southern Italians, when it's practiced at all.
Thalassoma trilobatum, were named for their green and red coloration. They are also called ladder wrasses, 'awela (Hawaiian), and green-barred wrasses, and can be up to 11 inches in length. Wrasses are a big-lipped, spindle-shaped fish that “flap” their pectoral fins up and down while swimming.
In 2005, Marion County native Robert “Bob” Tinnel published his graphic novel, 'Feast of the Seven Fishes,' based on his experiences of growing up in an Italian-American family, specifically the Christmas Eve tradition of the same name that consists of a meatless meal with several seafood courses.
In Southern and Central Italy, baked pasta is a must. In Northern Italy, Lasagne Bolognese and filled pasta like manicotti and ravioli are traditional Christmas fare. Next comes the main event, the meat. Roasted veal, baked chicken, sausages or braised beef are common Natale entrées worth celebrating.
A Christmas Eve dinner excludes meat, as abstinence is required, and should comprise twelve distinct dishes in memory of the twelve Apostles. It begins with a soup, either borscht with uszka (tortellini), or wild mushroom consommé (grzybowa), followed by herring in different forms.
Italian-American families rekindled the Old Country's Christmas Eve tradition by preparing a seven-course seafood meal (hence the name of the newly found tradition) that both made them feel close to their homes, while celebrating the sea, a major connection in Italy.
For many in The States, tradition is to observe Christmas Eve with “The Feast of the Seven Fishes,” however, this is not Italian or Sicilian at all, it is an Italian-American tradition!
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is uniquely American. Italian immigrants created their own traditions and identities, and likely used the number seven because of its biblical significance. The feast is typically made up of at least seven dishes, each containing its own type of fish, separated into various courses.
In 2005, Marion County native Robert “Bob” Tinnel published his graphic novel, 'Feast of the Seven Fishes,' based on his experiences of growing up in an Italian-American family, specifically the Christmas Eve tradition of the same name that consists of a meatless meal with several seafood courses.
153 fish. The precision of the number of fish as 153 has long been considered, and various writers have argued that the number 153 has some deeper significance, with many conflicting theories having been offered (see the discussion on the number 153 in the Bible).
Introduction: My name is Margart Wisoky, I am a gorgeous, shiny, successful, beautiful, adventurous, excited, pleasant person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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