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Posted on 12/24/2025 12:46:18 PM PST by nickcarraway
Like many groups, there are special traditions that mark the holiday season, and Italian-Americans are no exception.
Although some dispute how and where the "Feast of the Seven Fishes" actually began, it has become a Christmas Eve staple in many Italian households across the country.
Clams, smelts, baccala, scungilli, mussels, lobster, and calamari consist of a typical Feast of the Seven Fishes menu - although others argue there are no hard and fast rules, except that you have seven different seafood dishes to share with friends, family, and those you love before Santa comes down the chimney.
ABC15's Nick Ciletti and Jamie Warren sat down with famed Valley chef Joey Maggiore, whose family has created a culinary dynasty spanning nearly half a century here in the Valley, starting with his father's namesake restaurant, Tomaso's, which opened in 1977.
Since then, Maggiore has expanded the "family business" to multiple restaurants, concepts, and states.
Recently, we met Maggiore at The Italiano in Scottsdale, near the Loop 101 and Shea, where the chef showed off all of their Feast of the Seven Fishes menu items.
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My understanding is this is a Sicilian tradition.
Ping
There’s pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried.
There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp,
pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad,
shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich.
That’s about it.
“Clams, smelts, baccala, scungilli, mussels, lobster, and calamari consist of a typical Feast of the Seven Fishes menu”. I’m down for the lobster, but the rest...I don’t know.
Dominic the Donkey ...
“There’s pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried.
There’s pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp,
pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad,
shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich.
That’s about it.”
You left out shrimp and grits.
Scungili is conch. I've never eaten it.
Bacala is female cod; staucch is male cod. Both are dried and packed in salt, so you have to soak them running water for 24 hours to make them useable for cooking. It's easier to work with frozen cod, regardless of sex, for the Sicilian Cod Stew I make during the winter months.
Today I made another traditional Sicilian Christmas Eve dish: Pasta with anchovies in a garlic and olive oil base. A good Italian Pino Grigio supplements it wonderfully.
When I was a kid, we always had oyster stew on Christmas Eve. No idea why, since there are no Italians on either side of my family. Then we’d go out and watch Marx Brothers movies.
I think both traditions came about because my dad liked oyster stew and the Marx Brothers.
The ‘julbord’, Sweden’s Christmas version of the smorgasbord, looks wonderful:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s_V1c9aXLSc
Sounds delicious.
Nope. I live in Sicily and no one I've met here has ever heard of it. One of my uncles lived in Bologna for 25 years and is my "go to guy" on Italian traditions and trivia. He says that the seven fishes thing came from one small village in the vicinity of Naples. When folks from that area moved to the US they took that culinary and holiday tradition with them. For whatever reason, their Feast Of the Seven Fishes spread among Italian Americans of all stripes as the years went by.
Definitely an Italian America thing. Definitely not a Sicilian thing though I do wish it was celebrated here. It's very, very tasty.
“I think both traditions came about because my dad liked
oyster stew and the Marx Brothers”
-
No doubt about it!
It takes about a week to prep baccalà and make it fit for human consumption, but at that, it’s still more appetizing than lutefisk.
The rest of that list would make a great bouillabaise or cacciucco.
Baccalà for Christmas; bagna càuda for New Year’s Eve. Man, I miss those traditional holiday dinners.
Oysters at Christmas is a Tidewater Virginia thing. We always had it and I never knew why.
I like to learn something new every day, and I just learned something new from you.
I heard “Dominick the Donkey” for the first time this season...Hilarious!!!!!
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