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Growing up, I thought everyone was Italian. Like innocent until proven guilty, you were Italian until proven otherwise. My 10-year-old brain couldn’t comprehend that Italy wasn’t the only other country to exist and people had different traditions than we did. New Jersey Italian is its own kind of culture. If you drop us in Italy, our accents would...

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Season 2 of FX/Hulu’s The Bear featured an intense and emotionally draining episode, a flashback to a Christmas Eve Feast of Seven Fishes meal at the Berzatto house several years prior. Carmy has come home to visit from Denmark. Matriarch Donna Berzatto, expertly portrayed by Jamie Lee Curtis, is frantically preparing the dinner, drinking and chain...

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Although Christmas Eve is when children ’round the world wait for the big guy in red to freefall down the chimney, back in the days of old in Southern Italy, December 24 was a time of commemorative waiting for the birth of Jesus Christ. This more holy vigil, or La Vigilia, was observed by abstaining from meat and indulging in what was plentiful in...

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Have you heard of the Italian American Christmas Eve dinner called the Feast of the Seven Fishes? Maybe that season-two episode of The Bear started you thinking about it. Where did it come from exactly? Is this a widespread thing? Could it possibly become your new favorite Dec. 24 tradition?  To answer that third question: It can! And you don't nee...

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For many Italian-American families, the Feast of the Seven Fishes is as synonymous with Christmas as presents under the tree. A Christmas Eve tradition brought by immigrants from Italy in the late 1800s, it has evolved from an effort to abstain from meat into one of the most anticipated celebrations of the year. From its humble Roman Catholic begin...

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South Philly has a new holiday anthem, courtesy of a local clothing store. "If You Give Me Seven Fishes" celebrates the pescatarian spread enjoyed by many Italian-American families on Christmas Eve. The tune was written and recorded by the owners of South Fellini, the Philly-themed clothing shop on East Passyunk, and it comes with its own music vid...

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In a show that joyously traffics in food porn, the Very Special Christmas episode of The Bear oddly features none. Throughout the season 2 flashback episode “Fishes,” the food imagery that exists is often utilitarian, swift, and violent. Meatballs angrily plop into a vat of roiling gravy, lobsters are audibly cracked in half, and a greasy artichoke...

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If you think the holidays call for an extravagant meal to be shared with loved ones, the Feast of the Seven Fishes will not disappoint. This Italian-American culinary celebration occurs every Christmas Eve and involves cooking seven different types of fish and seafood. In the early 1900s, the feast was created as a way for families to partake in th...

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Christmas Eve has always been my favorite day of the year. Growing up, while most people I knew had their big holiday celebrations on Christmas Day, my family always pulled out the stops the night before. And like any good Italian American family, we didn’t dine on turkey or ham or casseroles of any kind — rather, we celebrated Feast of the Seven F...

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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...

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