Last week, I read the following story on stage at Crescent Ballroom as part of the Eating Christmas Bar Flies show. The room was packed, the audience so fun, and all the stories stay with me. If you’re in Phoenix, the next Bar Flies is in February!

When Facebook and I were young and innocent, one of my favorite lines to use in the about section was, “Irish with Italian tastebuds.” Most of my ancestors fled Ireland in the 1850s, but more recently, Angelo Passo came over from Rome, moved to Scranton, PA, married Josephine Petrerio and had my step-great-grandfather Leo. He died before I was born, so the little I know about him is important: his nonna kept a pot of red sauce on the stove at all times, Leo loved my mom – and she adored him. 

My mom was the only grandchild welcomed into the kitchen to make the Feast of the Seven Fishes every year. Leo, his nonna, and my mom, starting early in the morning on Dec 24th, prepared the traditional dishes: Baked clams, fried smelts, salted white fish, the sea snail Scungilli (skoon·jee·lee), Mussels, Calamari, and … Lobster? 

I don’t know if lobster was on the menu. The Passos weren’t wealthy and there were a lot of them. But I do know there was shrimp, because they were my mom’s job. De-veining pounds of crustaceans doesn’t sound fun to me, but my mom didn’t complain. Even thirty years later, she glowed with pride remembering the plate of her handiwork going around the table.

She grew up, left home to start her family, intermittently talked with her parents, but on many Christmas Eves she and I made the Feast of the Seven Fishes. In the kitchen, she told me about cooking with Leo and eating the feast. It sounded like the one day in the calendar year she truly believed in love–so real she could smell it and eat it. 

As I grew up, it was sometimes the feast of the four fishes. Smelt and sea snail are hard to source in Phoenix. And today it’s devolved into being just the feast of the shrimp cocktail ring from Costco. But it’s a tradition, among few, that hasn’t slipped away. A prized catch I hold tight.

I was taught that the seven fish represent the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit – which you can remember thanks to a jaunty tune that I will now sing for you [To the folks reading, you’ll just have to imagine this part]: Wisdom, understanding, counsel, and fortitude, knowledge, piety, fear of the Lord. You always gotta end on fear, it’s the Catholic way. 

You eat the fish, you receive the gifts. But who can prove the origins of food traditions? Piety may have been the genesis, or maybe some guy needed to sell a bunch of fish before Christmas. Either way, when December rolls around, I need wisdom to survive the holidays. I crave an understanding of my family, and I fear the times when fewer people sit at the table. If eating seven varieties of fish helps with these matters–sign me up.

This year we’ll be at my mother-in-law’s and she hates fish, but we’ll be eating tamales so don’t pity me. I will make the feast of the seven fishes again, someday. I’ll cram my kitchen with an ungodly amount of sea creatures, give each of my kids a job, and tell them about Leo who made Christmas Eve a gift, and taught their grandma, who taught me, to bake clams, fry smelts… and double check the shrimp cocktail is defrosted.

I’m taking a break from my weekly chat for December, but there’s lots of fun happening in the TOMATO TOMATO Discord Alicia Kennedy started. (Don’t miss the thread of favorite holiday cookies.)