With the Feast of the Seven Fishes behind us, it's time to start looking forward to New Year's Eve. One of our readers sent us this story about New Year's Eve in Venice. Apparently Venetians get to look forward to a massive "kiss-in" with more than 60,000 people locking lips as they enter 2009. Apparently that's how many people showed up last year. The party begins at 10pm to allow for various rounds of practice kisses. Here's a link to the press release.
It wouldn't be Christmas in our household without a visit to the Pennsylvania Macaroni Company in the Strip District in Pittsburgh, PA. Year in and year out we pack up the kids and trek to Penn Mac (as well as nearby Wholey's Fish market for our fish order) to spend the day shopping and eating. Penn Mac is a treasure trove of Italian Specialty foods and there's no place on earth that smells better than their cheese counter. If you are not fortunate enough to be in the area and still want to take advantage of Penn Mac's enormous inventory visit their website at www.pennmac.com. Since Feast of the Seven Fishes came out Penn Mac has regularly stocked the book and been one of our biggest supporters. So thanks Rick and crew - we'll see you in a couple weeks!
There's absolutely no excuse for not posting this in advance of the event - let's just say I'm an idiot and leave it at that. On Sunday, Dec. 7th, 2008, I had the very great pleasure and honor of being a guest speaker for an Italian Holiday Program sponsored by the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences at West Virginia University and the Committee for the Preservation of Italian-American History and Culture. The event was very well attended and I was fortunate to have the Italian Youth Choir warm up the crowd. The kids were wonderful, thanks to their tireless director Monica Bonasso and, of course, their own work ethic and innate talent. Thanks to Michael Oliverio, Gloria Cunningham, Matthew Vester and Tina Levelle for inviting me and for making the event so special. It's always an honor to be able to speak about Feast of the Seven Fishes, and our Italian heritiage in general, but especially when I can do it here in north-central West Virginia. I should also mention there were also several presentations on various Italian provincial holiday cooking traditions by their respective natives that was very enlightening (and hunger-pang-inducing).
Bob Tinnell
Yes it's that time. An Italian Thanksgiving is right around the corner for us. One of our favorite Italian bloggers, Gary Macchioni at Penn Live, just wrote an entry on Thanksgiving, Italian Style. Since we enjoy reading Gary's stuff, we hope you do too. So here's an excerpt from his entry on Italian Thanksgiving. You'll have to visit his blog to read the rest.
On Thanksgiving, Italians did not live by turkey alone; we always had a side dish of pasta with red sauce. It may have been stuffed shells, homemade lasagna, or gnocchi. My mother made that ahead of time and reheated it before the big meal.
A big Italian salad was always on the menu. The dressing contained 1 cup of extra virgin olive oil, ¼ cup red wine vinegar, ¼ cup balsamic vinegar, fresh basil and/or oregano, garlic powder, salt and ground pepper. A typical dressing recipe calls for three parts oil to one part vinegar. However, in our house, salad was vinegar powerful. Click here to read the rest.
So last December I was at Chef Central event in Paramus, NJ. I was a guest of Chef Jim Edwards during his cooking demonstration of several dishes one might prepare in celebration of the Feast of the Seven Fishes. It was a great time – Jim is an amazing cook – and the crowd was large, friendly and very supportive. There were a couple of great ladies sitting right in the front row and I ended up talking with them extensively. One thing led to another as we discussed all things food and Italian and one of the ladies mentioned something that sounded absolutely delicious. She said that on Sunday mornings prior to the big meal, her family would often make a snack of anchovies and bread.
I was determined to try it and in the spirit of the season opted for the morning of Christmas Eve while we were ramping up to cook the Feast. I mentioned this to my mom and she said, “Oh we used to do that. Your great-grandmother would sauté anchovies and then spoon them out on fresh bread.” And in an additional step the ladies from New Jersey either omitted or did not practice, my great-grandmother would slice provolone over the hot anchovies which would melt right into the fish. We went with my great-grandmother’s approach, sautéing the anchovies in a little oil – garlic optional . Shannon had baked fresh bread – she always does the day before the Feast to make bread crumbs for stuffing the calamari – and we slathered the fish on the bread and added the provolone. Despite the early hour we had a little Chianti to accompany the meal. My brother, father-in-law and I instantly fell in love with the taste and have agreed to make it a regular part of our Christmas Eve tradition. You should try it, too. Sure the fish is salty and intense but if you go easy on it and have plenty of bread and cheese you just might find yourself falling in love. There’s something else I want you to try – and that is asking questions of the older members of your family - whether you are Italian or not.
As we grow older much of what we do becomes reflexive. We don’t even think about why we do things – choices cease to be choices and become more like, well, sneezes. As a filmmaker I see this all the time. Directors make decisions without a thought as to why. Our older family members behave the same way. They just always did this stuff because that’s what their older family members did. Often they didn’t ask the why of things and it occurred to no one to volunteer information. That’s how wonderful traditions are lost. I’m trying to get in the habit of asking my mom about everything now, because she’s not always going to think to tell me. Which reminds me – I still don’t have my great-grandmother’s recipe for the ravioli she always made for Easter...
We know it's early, but we're too excited to not talk about it. Just like last year and the year before, we will be organizing the Feast of the Seven Fishes Festival in Fairmont, West Virginia. It will take place on December 13th and there are many reasons to come - great food, music, and many friendly people. If you've never been before, this should be your first year. Ok, enough talking. Check out the video below for a sneak preview.
Thanksgiving at an Italian-American home, from my experience, has nearly the same menu as any traditional Thanksgiving dinner, but with one slight tweak and two very Italian additions: the lasagna entrée and the desserts.
Like everyone else, we have our turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, gravy, yams, pumpkin pie and other traditional accoutrement, but we kick off the meal with some of mamma's lasagna. It's usually the only time all year that we get this lucky, so piling this extra course onto an already enormous meal is no trouble at all. We just have to loosen our belts some more.
Our next tweak is the stuffing. While my mother always stuffs the turkey with a plain stuffing, she always makes an extra batch of cornbread and italian sausage stuffing on the side. A non-Italian friend of mine says that her family also makes the same stuffing—so maybe it's not an Italian tradition, but it's probably safe to say that the Pilgrims didn't use Italian sausage in their stuffing during the first Thanksgiving.
And finally, the dessert. Alongside our pumpkin pie and cheesecake, we'll always have a platter of Italian cookies and pastries that we have flown in from Ferrara Cafe in New York City. The best are the 7-Layer cookies (if you want to try to make them at home, you can find a recipe for these in our blog entry on November 9) and the cannoli.
-Mike
