I wasn't able to attend, but Bob tells me the Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival went great this weekend. Thanks to all of you who came out. Actually, you'll read about all the event in much more detail when Bob finishes writing his rendition of the event. In the mean time, below is an article from the Times West Virginian about the Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival.
Feast of the Seven Fishes Magical
Tradition celebrated during inaugural event in Downtown
Fairmont
By Mary Wade Burnside
Times West Virginian - FAIRMONT, WV
Robert Tinnell, a Fairmont native who lives in Morgantown, co-authored The Feast of the Seven Fishes, a graphic cookbook in comic-book form that recounts what he learned by observing his great-grandmother. "I love the feast,” he said. “It was like a magical thing. My great-grandmother's kitchen was like Merlin’s cave on Christmas Eve. It was like an event.”
Tinnell’s book was published more than a year ago and has been nominated for an Eisner Award, the top prize for graphic books. "The seven types of seafood don’t exactly roll off the tongue," said Tinnell, who noted that any type could be served. “It’s really limited by your imagination.”
Yet ask around at the Feast of the Seven Fishes what kinds of dishes were created on Christmas Eve, and the menu sounds pretty similar from family to family.
This was eel and squid, smelts, baccala, sardines and whiting, Tennant said. We were too poor to have shrimp or scallops. “And yes, that was just six fishes. And oysters,” she said. That was another one. Other typical fish were for sale by vendors, such as linguine and calamari.
The seven fishes, Tennant noted, come from the seven sacraments in the Catholic Church, including baptism, confession, marriage and confirmation. Next to Tennant’s booth was the Genco Olive Oil Co., but City Attorney Kevin Sansalone and City Planner Jay Rogers had not quit their day jobs to form a new business.
"It’s from The Godfather movies," Rogers said as the pair offered up roasted chestnuts and lupinis, a bean that Sansalone grew up eating around Christmastime as a snack. Festival-goers could try the lupinis plain or in olive oil. Sansalone stocked up in the Strip District of Pittsburgh recently after the WVU-Pitt game. “I got a 50-pound bag,” he said.
No one really knew why the beans were reserved for Christmas. “If you ate them any other time, they put the maloch (evil eye) on you,” joked Tom Mainella. Sansalone, whose wife, Vera, heads Main Street Fairmont, said attendance at the festival, which began at 11 a.m. and ran through the Christmas parade until 7 p.m., had been steady. In addition to food vendors along Monroe Street, Tinnell and his father-in-law, Larry Colaianni, taught a cooking school in the old Agape Evangelical Methodist Church, where the aroma of garlic cooked on a stove placed near the church's altar wafted among the stained glass and old wood.
Across the street, bands and singers performed in the old fire department, and the music was piped outside so festival-goers could both see chestnuts roasting on an open fire and hear songs about them. Mary Beth Atwell showed up to watch her children in the Christmas parade and had time to munch on a steak hoagie beforehand.
“When I saw the food, I said, let’s check it out,” she said. “This is a great idea. I don¹t know if they planned it in conjunction with the parade. I think people like a reason to come out.”
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