I received a copy Feast of the Seven Fishes by Daniel Paterna to review for my site. As you know, I am not Italian American, but have been living now longer in Italy than I lived in the USA. In Italian years, I am 35.
I always hear people complain when coming to Tuscany, that Italian food is better at home or rather that the food in Tuscany is not Italian food. What people don’t realize is that there is no “ITALIAN FOOD”. Italy has only been united as a country since 1861, before that they various regions were all different countries so to speak, on their own. The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was the combined regions of Sicily and Naples. Most of the “Italian” food in the USA was created by the immigrants from these areas. Daniel’s family recipes are from outside of Naples but really as it says on the cover, are from Brooklyn.
In Daniel’s book, he shares his memories and recipes from where he grew up in Brooklyn in the Bensonhurst neighborhood. The book is much more than just recipes for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner of the Seven Fishes. It is a wonderful documentary on his family and the shops and vendors he grew up with. A true celebration. I can see where his family came from by the recipes in the book. I recently returned from Vico Equense where his grandmother Luigina was born and could see her recipes while traveling down in the area south of Naples.
Southern Italian food is often tomato heavy and tomato paste being used as well as canned tomatoes in sauces. I immagine as the American tomatoes did not have that depth of flavor as the incredible San Marzano tomatoes grown in the volcanic soil where she was from. Another reason you often don’t find what your Nonna made when you come back to Italy, is that they adapted the recipes with what they could find in the USA.
The photography and graphics of the book are really fabulous and compliment the recipes. He has the family box of recipes on index cards with the family secrets he shares with us. The chapter on the Shops is filled with the family owned shops and vendors, each with their stories and interspersed with great everyday recipes.
He then covers the holiday menus. Even after all these years of being here, I have a hard time getting through the food orgies at holiday time. Days of cooking, large tables laden with multiple courses. Italians have an antipasto course followed by the pasta course and that may mean several kinds of pasta then the main course and never just one vegetable dish. Dessert would be cookies and sweets galore. I think for most non-Italian Americans, Thanksgiving is our time to gorge.
The next recipes I am going to make are some of the dough based ones. Fried pizza is one of the dishes I enjoyed in Naples on my last trip. The small ones are perfect for parties, the dough is fried and then finished with mozzarella and tomato sauce, mini light crunchy pizzas.
Daniel includes other holiday meals as well. The actual feast of the seven fishes is the Christmas Eve ritual meal. Seven is an important number for Catholics, the world was created in seven days, there are seven deadly sins and seven sacraments as well. Most families have more that seven dishes. Here in Tuscany we have a soup, Cacciucco which has five fishes, one for every “c” in cacciucco.
Be sure to go ready to eat when you are invited. My first Christmas Eve dinner in Tuscany was a nightmare. I didn’t make it through the feast..
He also shares recipes for Good Friday and Easter Sunday menus and recipes as well of some of the classic basics like a Spaghetti Frittata, Sausage and Peppers, Rice Balls, Ricotta Pie and much more.
I had a hard time choosing what I wanted to make to test some recipes so I picked a fish and a meat dish. I adore calamari and the cover shot looked so appealing I made the Stuffed Calamari, which could be part of your Christmas Eve dinner.
The calamari are stuffed with a breadcrumb mixture you find often used in the south with currants and pinenuts as well as cheese and parsley. Don’t overfill as the calamari shrink while cooking.
The cook in the tomato sauce and cook long and slow. This prevents them from being tough.
Serve in a bowl with their sauce and a nice loaf of bread for the scarpetta, cleaning up your plate with a little “shoe” of bread.
Being filled, these are really rich and a nice addition to any meal. The sauce is enriched with the liquid the calamari gives off which makes the tomato sauce taste like a soup. Often you can eat the fish and use the sauce on pasta.
The second dish I made was the Meatball Stew. I think one of the most common dishes people think of for Italian American recipes is Spaghetti and Meatballs which is really only made in a few areas of Italy, like Abruzzo, but Daniel’s family made tiny meatballs to put into the rich Lasagna. They make 150-200 tiny meatballs and layer with ricotta, mozzarella, grated pecorino romano cheese and ladles of sauce between pasta layers. You never see a lasagna like that in Northern Italy. We use ragu and bechamel sauce with parmigiano. The beauty of regional cooking is in the differences. You also rarely find Lasagna on menus in restaurants anymore, as tourists would order it as a meal and in Italy you go out to have a full meal, not just a first course.
The Meatball Stew is a perfect example of stretching food to feed a large family. Instead of the meatballs in a tomato sauce, which was originally to flavor the pasta sauce with meat and then the meat is served as a main course. His family adds potatoes and peas to the tomato sauce and lets it all slow stew together. My husband adored this.
I used the same breadcrumb mixture I used to stuff the calamari, some people leave out the currents for the meatballs, but I like the extra flavor it gives.
My girlfriend had just been telling me about her family meatball stew, which I had never heard of. Her version came from their local Italian butcher and he added lentils to his version. Ask for a recipe from 10 Italians and you will get 10 versions.
If you are not Italian, like me, this is a perfect starter cookbook with all your basic recipes you need. If you are Italian American, I hope you get the book and then go and document your own family and create your own version to share as well.
Feast of the Seven Fishes by Daniel Paterna
( This is my Amazon affiliate link, you pay the same price online, but I get a little commission)
Thanks to Mindbuck Media for my copy to review.
This is a charming post. I loved the all the vintage photos. How lucky is he to have this rich history
i can’t tell you what a beautiful evocative book this is. The recipes are all simple and the fotos and stories are the frosting on the cake.
Many thanks, Judy, this sounds like a delightful book! Like most Americans, I guess, I grew up eating Americanized Italian food. My mom often cooked spaghetti, usually without meatballs, because our family was always on a budget. She cooked lasagna, too, and although I love mom’s cooking, I simply adore lasagne verdi from Emilia-Romagna. To deviate There’s a great article written by John Mariani called, “In Search of the Perfect Lasagne”—have you ever seen it? Thanks again for your lovely review, I’ll definitely try the meatball recipe. —Bob
I didn’t post the actual recipe .. it is more than his mom’s card!
What a beautiful review Judy ! My husband lived in the Bensonhurst neighborhood so he is anxious to see the cookbook and compare recipes that his mother made as well as reading about the shops. Ordering the cookbook now. Thanks !
he will adore it!
Enjoyed your review very much! I am going to make the meatball stew and the stuffed calamari soon. The book sounds too good to pass up, I got so excited I switched over to Amazon before I read that I could order it through you Judy. Sorry! I will read to the end next time.