Feast of the Seven Fishes

The Feast of the Seven Fishes is part of the Italian-American Christmas Eve celebration. The long tradition of eating seafood on Christmas Eve dates back to the Roman Catholic tradition of abstaining from meat during certain holy times of the year. This feast of Christmas Eve is a day of vigil or fasting, and since no meat or animal fat may be used on those days, practicing Catholics eat fish (typically fried in oil).

The "Feast of the Seven Fishes" may include seven, eight or even nine specific fish that are considered traditional. However, some Italian-American families have been known to celebrate with nine, eleven or thirteen different seafood dishes. "Seven" fish as a fixed concept or name is unknown in Italy itself. In some of the oldest Italian-American families the number of fish dishes was not counted. There are many hypotheses about what the number "7" represents. Seven is the most repeated number in the Bible and appears more than 700 times.

The feast usually begins with baccala (salted cod) or lemon whiting, followed by some version of clams or mussels in spaghetti, squid, octopus, Bronzino, and onward, an innumerable number of fish dishes. Some have suggested that the idea of the "seven" fish originated in restaurants.