Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Feast of Seven Fishes

Our family is small. There are no little kids. So we stopped exchanging gifts several years ago. When it's all adults you end up just handing each other gift cards and where's the fun in that. So for years we were doing the same events and traditions,  everyone's enthusiasm waning. Until last year when we decided to start researching other country's Christmas traditions and celebrating in a new way.

Last year we had an English Christmas complete with figgy pudding and lousy accents.  This year we moved on to Italy and the Feast of the Seven Fishes. It's a Catholic traditional meal with multiple courses all containing fish or seafood.

I vetted a lot of recipes and ended up with the following:
Anti pasta

Caesar salad with anchovies
Smoked salmon with dill
Salted cod (baccala)
Lobster bisque
Seafood pot pie
Shrimp scampi

Desserts included:
Tiramisu
Spumoni with pizzelle cookies
Cannolis
Biscotti

We had about 9 different varieties of seafood in all. Any number between 7 and 11 is acceptable. We had several last minute cancellations due to inclement weather but it ended up for the best as the food was a huge hit and there was nary a leftover.

I stuck a "my name is" sticker with a famous Italian (Julius Caesar, Michelangelo,  Martin Scorsese etc) on each guests back and they asked questions of fellow guests to determine who they were assigned. After dark everyone carroled around the fire pit and several bottles of red wine kept us warm. It was a wonderful evening.

Next year I've set my sights on Russia. I see lots of vodka,  Borscht and inappropriate czar jokes in our future.