Many Italian Americans celebrate Christmas Eve with a big family feast teeming with savory seafood stews, chilled shellfish, rich pastas and gorgeous baked fish. The multi-course meal from la mare is known as the Feast of Seven Fishes or Feste dei Sette Pesce.

The tradition's origin story is obscure, but what's clear is that many Italian Americans, including TODAY's favorite chefs like Anthony Contrino and Anthony and Elaina Scotto, can whip up an spectacular seafood feast. The beauty of food-based traditions is they often evolve through time. Festive dishes take on flavors and ingredients as they're prepared from kitchen to kitchen, region to region or country to country. And the Feast of Seven Fishes is a prime example of this phenomenon.