In Mexico City, where I grew up, Christmas Eve is the main meal of the season. Roast pork in adobo, salt cod a la vizcaina and mole with romeritos and dried shrimp patties are traditional dishes we enjoy on the occasion. I didn’t discover the beautiful Feast of the Seven Fishes until many years later, when I moved to the U.S. Although Mexico is a mostly Catholic country, we do not observe this tradition.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is celebrated by Italian-American families on Christmas Eve. It comes from the Roman Catholic Church custom of abstaining from eating meat on the eve of feast days, swapping it for fish and seafood. It’s not entirely clear what the seven fishes signify. Some say it symbolizes the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church; others say it represents the seven days of the week or the seven hills of Rome. And some families go as far as cooking 12 fish dishes in honor of the apostles.
Curious to know more, I asked someone for whom the tradition is the most important festivity of the year. Fiore Tedesco, chef and co-owner of L’Oca d’Oro in Austin, Texas, grew up in New York State in a large Italian-American family for which the Feast was the glue that brought them together, and was also the catalyst that guided and solidified his career as a chef and restaurateur. He has been serving the Feast at his restaurant since opening in 2016, and will be serving again this year.
He describes in his own words the importance of the tradition to him and his family, and shares a classic recipe for all to try at home.
The Feast of The Seven Fishes, by Fiore Tedesco
Christmas Eve has always been my favorite day of the year. Until I was twelve, members numbering in the dozens would descend upon my grandparents’ tiny two bedroom apartment in Troy, New York, for the Feast of the Seven Fishes.
The Feast originates from the Italian tradition of a vigil or fasting day on Christmas Eve. The event as I grew up celebrating was anything but a “fast”. The Italian American celebration had evolved into an “abstinence” from eating meat in exchange for a several hour meal devouring an obscenity of seafood.
From noon until the wee hours of the next morning, we’d come together to eat, wrestle, laugh, cuddle, and cry, the cacophony of sounds competing with The Benny Hill Show and Rowan & Martin’s Laugh In blaring from the TV in the parlor. I felt the most loved and whole I’d ever feel in my life in that marathon span of hours together.
It was the day that mended the wounds of the year. Whether my dad was in prison, I was getting bullied in school, or I was simply stuck trying to make sense of the world, I could close my eyes and know that Christmas Eve was around the corner. There would be a bounty of noogies from my uncles, hours catching up with my cousins on the events of the school year, and I’d eat my weight in shrimp cocktail.
The bounty of food prepared by my grandparents was like a magic trick. The never-ending platters of squid salad, a haul of shrimp cocktail that would have fed the entire Italian Brigands, and towers of fried smelts, scattered over yesterday’s newspaper. It was like a chandelier turned upside down on the table.
The finale, though, was always reserved for spaghetti and clams.
Given the gratuitous grazing that preceded that course, you could nonetheless sense the anticipation as the pasta was being plated. Bathed in a slick garlicky sauce of olive oil, white wine, butter and parsley, the aromas erupted from the bowl and saturated every surface in its vicinity. On Christmas morning, I’d often wake up to the slight tingly heat of the garlic left behind on my chin.
The excitement surrounding the sight of that presentation would actually make me cry a little or just shake with anxiety. Upon reflection, I now know it was a cathartic release – the visual and edible signal that everything would be OK.
In 1990, my grandmother’s health started failing. We moved the feast to my uncle’s house the next year. It was still a thrill for all of my family to get together, but the day was sapped of the early magic at my grandparents’ tiny apartment. I moved to NYC when I was nineteen, and stopped going back home for a few years. I struggled with the idea of Christmas Eve not having the same magic anymore.
Eventually, I started hosting the meal at my apartment. Making the meal and inviting friends and loved ones brought some of the magic back for me. I didn’t know yet how to survive working in a fine dining kitchen, but I could pull off executing a seven-course ambitious seafood feast for 15 friends in my ill equipped studio apartment kitchen.
I realized that organizing the mise en place, cleaning the fish, and cleaning and preparing the kitchen turned a light on in me. I would do this every year, sometimes back at my brother’s house, sometimes in the city.
It became my magic trick to pull this dinner off no matter wherever I was. I grew to realize that this was how I best know to express my love, too. Today, when people ask what drove me to a life in restaurants, it is easy to point to Grandma and Poppy’s house, and the way they quietly communicated their love through food.
When we opened L’Oca d’Oro in June of 2016, Christmas Eve was the night that I was looking forward to the most. That if we could just get there, everything would be alright. Hosting the Feast of the Seven Fishes is still the highlight of my year. It bookends everything that has happened.
I am very proud to have carried the tradition forward at the restaurant to share these stories and traditions with my restaurant community as well as my family. We have refined the experience for our guests, but the real magic trick now is making every one that comes into L’Oca d’Oro feel like a part of the family.
It’s still the one day of the year I feel most like my eight-year-old self. I get flooded with the memories of my grandparents, laughing with my cousins, the texture of the wallpaper in the parlor. Making the fest every year helps to keep those memories intact.
I think what my grandparents were always saying, that this celebration was to make special moments for the people you love the most. I’d like to think that I’ve drawn closer to them, or perhaps understand them more every time I make the feast. I’d love to share my version with them. Grandma might want to yell at me for changing the spaghetti and clams, but I’m pretty sure she’d be proud.
Spaghetti & Clams
Recipe courtesy of Fiore Tedesco, chef and co-owner of L’Oca d’Oro in Austin, Texas. Serves 4
FOR THE CLAMS:
- 48 littleneck clams
- 1/2 cup semolina flour
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 6 thyme sprigs
- 1/2 teaspoon red chile flake
- 2 garlic cloves, sliced
- 3 cups white wine
Submerge the live clams in an ice water bath and add flour. Let rest in the bath for 2 hours then drain, making sure to discard any clams that are not firmly closed.
Heat the olive oil on medium high heat in a wide sauté pan. Add the garlic, chile flake, and thyme to the plan. Add the drained clams to the pot, giving a toss to get everything coated. Add the white wine and cover the pot to let the clams steam open. This should take no longer than 5 minutes. Once they are all open, turn off the heat, and remove the lid.
Remove half the clams from their shells, reserving the other half for garnish. Strain the cooking liquid through a fine mesh strainer to remove any grit. Pour about 1/4 cup of the clam liquor over the shucked clams and reserve the rest for the pasta.
FOR THE PASTA:
- 1/2 pound hot Italian sausage
- 1 pound spaghetti
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
- 1 teaspoon red chile flake
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
- 1 cup lacinato kale, chopped
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 1/2 cup flat parsley, chopped
- 24 shucked clams
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Remove casings from the sausage and place in an even layer on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Roast in the oven for 15-20 minutes, until mostly cooked through.
Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot. Salt the water and add spaghetti, cooking until al dente. While pasta is boiling, place a wide sauté pan over medium heat. Add olive oil, garlic, chile flake, black pepper, and kale, and cook for 2 minutes. Add rendered sausage and cook for another minute. Add about 1 cup of clam liquor to the pan and let reduce slightly. Add 1 tablespoon of butter.
Once pasta is cooked, drain and add to the pan. The sauce should thicken and start to cling to the noodles. Add the rest of the butter, half the parsley, and reserved clams and toss together. Divide the pasta into 4 bowls and garnish with the remaining clams in their shell, parsley, and a squirt of olive oil.
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