The tale of the Seven Fishes
This thing about The Feast of Seven Fishes that Italians do on Christmas Eve was something I learned, I dunno, maybe when I was 40 years old.
I mean, we all have traditions, right? And our own family tradition on Christmas Eve was extra special because it was also my Grandma Ida’s birthday. My Auntie Sis has hosted our family’s Christmas Eve dinner every year since before I was born. The party starts at 3 p.m. this year; I am admonished not to be late (but everyone know I will be). And sure, we had fish on Christmas Eve, but I never knew until I was a middle-aged man that we were supposed to have SEVEN different fishes?
My brothers and I got talking about the whole
Seven Fishes Feast that we are supposed to know about. Rudi, the professor and my older brother, looked it up and found out that it wasn’t until 1983 that someone in Philadelphia codified it as a “Feast of Seven Fishes.” So it seems to be more of an Italian American invention than something from the old country. My brother Paul, who, like Rudi, speaks a gajillion languages, is the only brother who speaks not only formal Italian but also the Neopolitan dialect, an entirely separate language that I struggle to understand. (Of us three boys, Rudi, a sociolinguistic-anthropology professor, and Paul, an ophthalmologist, are the smart ones, while I was always the one who needed extra help on math homework, had grass-stained pants, and got detentions in school.)
Paul once asked Grandma Ida, in dialect, about the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.
Now, before giving my Grandma’s answer, let me give some backstory: during World War II, Grandma Ida was a very pretty young bride and mother living in Southern Italy, and like all pretty women in German-occupied Italy, she had to hide from German soldiers and at the same time find enough food