The Feast of the Seven Fishes () is an Italian American celebration of Christmas Eve with dishes of fish and other seafood. Christmas Eve is a vigil or fasting day, and the abundance of seafood reflects the observance of abstinence from meat until the feast of Christmas Day itself.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes derives its name from seven different seafood dishes that are typically served during this celebration. Also known as la Vigilia, it is a ritualized Christmas Eve feast consumed over several hours. As an Italian-American celebration, it came along from the peak of immigration into the cities of the Northeast and the Upper Midwest (from the 1880s to the 1930s).
The tradition stems from the Roman Catholic observance of abstaining from eating meat on the eve of a feast day. As no meat or animal fat could be used on such days, observant Catholics would instead eat fish (typically fried in oil). It is unclear when or where the term "Feast of the Seven Fishes" was popularized. Nick Vadala, writing for The Philadelphia Inquirer, found the newspaper's oldest reference to the feast in a 1983 article.
The meal includes multiple (usually seven or thirteen) fish dishes. It is often erroneously claimed that the tradition is "unknown in Italy". However the tradition of a Christmas Eve meal of seven or thirteen fishes has been well-documented in Calabria. In some Italian-American families, there is no count of the number of fish dishes. A well-known dish is baccalÃÂ (salted cod fish). Fried smelts, calamari, and other types of seafood have been incorporated into the Christmas Eve dinner over the years.
The number seven may come from the seven Sacraments of the Catholic Church, or the seven hills of Rome, or some other source. There is no general agreement on its meaning.
The meal's components may include some combination of anchovies, whiting, lobster, sardines, baccalÃÂ (dried salt cod), smelts, eels, squid, octopus, shrimp, mussels and clams. The menu may also include pasta, vegetables, baked goods and wine.