Gemma Cooksey, senior clinical applications system analyst: “Being of Italian American descent, every holiday and really every day is all about food. Abstaining from eating meat on certain days is part of our culture. For example, no meat on Fridays during Lent.
“Christmas Eve is another one of those days where meat is never eaten. While, technically, the Feast of Seven Fishes is an Italian American tradition, the history of this comes from southern Italy. My great grandparents came from Gesualdo, Italy, in the province of Avellino (just east of Naples). In southern Italy, the coast is never far so seafood is abundant and the Catholic teaching of making a sacrifice by not eating meat on Christmas Eve is a followed throughout the entire country.
"In the 1800s when my great grandparents, along with thousands of other Italian immigrants from southern Italy arrived in America, they formed their own culture and identity. The Feast of Seven Fishes is thought to have originated in New York City by these Italian immigrants from southern Italy (my ancestors settled in New Jersey). The number seven comes from Catholic teachings such as the seven sacraments and the seven virtues.
“Over the years, this tradition of not eating meat on Christmas Eve has remained constant for Italian Americans. If there are not seven different fishes that you like, you can make two or three different kinds but prepare them different ways to equal the number seven.
“Our family’s typical Christmas Eve dinner consisted of stuffed squid over spaghetti, mussels in ‘gravy’ (we don’t call it sauce), baked clams, shrimp cocktail or shrimp scampi, fried flounder, fried eel and scallops. Can’t wait for Christmas Eve!”