Feast of the seven fishes

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Italians around the world celebrate Christmas Eve with a Feast of the Seven Fishes, also known as La Vigilia (Italian: "the vigil").

It is a meal that typically consists of seven different seafood dishes. Some Italian families have been known to celebrate with 9, 11 or 13 different seafood dishes. This celebration is a commemoration of the wait, Vigilia di Natale, for the midnight birth of the baby Jesus.

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[edit] Tradition and symbolism

The tradition of eating seafood on Christmas Eve dates from the medieval Catholic tradition of abstinence--in this case, refraining from the consumption of meat or milk products--on Fridays and specific holy days. As no meat or butter could be used, observant Catholics would instead eat fish, typically fried in oil.

There are many hypotheses for what the number "7" relates to, one being the number of Sacraments in the Roman Catholic Church. Another theory is that seven is a number representing perfection: the traditional Biblical number for divinity is three, and for Earth is four, and the combination of these numbers, seven, represents God on Earth, or Jesus Christ.

[edit] A typical Christmas Eve meal

The components to the meal are similar for most families as there are always some seven combinations of anchovies, sardines, dried salt cod, smelts, eels, squid, octopus, shrimp, mussels, oysters, and clams. In the mixes are pastas, vegetables, baked or fried kale patties, baked goods, and the pride-filled homemade wine.

[edit] Popular dishes

[edit] External links