Amy Riolo - Italian Recipes For Dummies

The Christmas season in Italy starts, culturally speaking, with the first Sunday of Advent and lasts through Epiphany. In addition to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, important Saints’ Days such as Santa Lucia (December 13) and Santo Stefano (December 26) also fall in December. New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, are also celebrated joyfully. It is only after Epiphany on January 7 that the Christmas season ends. Additional winter holidays include San Valentino or St. Valentine’s Day, and Carnevale (Mardi Gras) before Lent begins.

On the feast of Santa Lucia, various towns have their own sweet and savory baked goods that are enjoyed in addition to wintertime foods. Occhi di Santa Lucia/ Santa Lucia’s Eyes Cookies are a traditional sweet enjoyed for breakfast or dessert, dunked in coffee or sweet wine for the occasion. On Epiphany, La Befana is celebrated. La Befana is a good witch who not only rewards children for good (and punishes them for bad) behavior on the Eve of Epiphany, but is also credited with sweeping away negative energy from previous years. Italian children hang stockings for her to fill on December 6. Cutout cookies in the shapes of stars and stockings, cakes, and stocking-shaped pizze and calzoni are made in her honor.

Much like in the United States, Valentine’s Day meals are all about the romance, and some cooks like to amp things up with aphrodisiac ingredients such as oysters, chili, spices, and chocolate. There are no set dishes for St. Valentine’s Day, but fine dining and elegance are synonymous with the holiday based upon St. Valentine secretly marrying young Roman couples against the will of the government in Terni, Italy.

Christmas meals usually consist of a cenone , or a large meal, on Christmas Eve. Because people couldn’t eat meat prior to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, the large meal typically consisted of seafood and is where the Italian-American tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes began. You can read more about this in Chapter 11, but keep in mind that you can have a lovely, authentic Italian Christmas Eve without seven different types of seafood; that’s not a common practice throughout Italy today. Pasta with seafood and fish or a seafood-based second course will still be delicious, nutritious, and authentic. See Table 4-9for an example Christmas Eve menu.

A Christmas Day meal is like a greatly amplified Sunday winter meal. Many families eat Tortellini in brodo as a primo, followed by roasted meats. Others eat lasagne, baked pastas, or other family favorites. The meal usually takes place mid-afternoon and lasts for a long time. Table 4-10features dishes that my family likes to serve, but you can feel free to change things up. Note that it is not typical to serve fish on Christmas Day since that is what the Christmas Eve cenone is based on.

Obviously, several cookies and desserts are traditional at Christmas, just as in other places. Even though people usually don’t eat all of them at one sitting, it is nice to have them on hand and to give as edible gifts. The Biscotti di regina/ Calabrian Sesame Cookies are traditionally enjoyed at Christmas and Santo Stefano, which is the following day. On December 26, many Italian families take walks outside and go to visit extended family and friends that they couldn’t be with on Christmas itself. Whenever you go to visit someone else, it is nice to have these treats on hand to offer them.

Meat was traditionally not eaten from Friday until Sunday mass in the Catholic church, but nowadays it is usually only abstained from on Fridays and during Holy Week during Lent. In the past, sugar and dairy were often refrained from, so there are some historical recipes that do not include those ingredients, made specifically for Lent. Today, typical late winter and spring fare is consumed with special attention to eating seafood on Friday. There are no set Lenten menus.

TABLE 4-9:Christmas Eve Menu

During Carnevale, there are several sweet treats such as Pignolata (which is similar to Struffoli ), Chiacchiere (fried pastry fritters called “gossips”), and other sweet fried treats. Zeppole di San Giuseppe/ St. Joseph’s Day Cream Puffs are made in honor of St. Joseph (the patron saint of pastry chefs), along with a large meal including fava beans in some areas. St. Joseph’s Day is also Father’s Day in Italy.

TABLE 4-10:Christmas Day Menu

On Easter, egg-based dishes such as Frittate and sweets as well as breads and savory pies made with eggs are traditional (see Table 4-11). Fresh spring vegetables such as artichokes, asparagus, fava beans, carrots, and baby vegetables are all featured. In Calabria, my family makes Cozzupe di Pasqua /Calabrian Easter Bread to eat at breakfast on Easter morning and to distribute, while the more well-known Colomba /Traditional Easter Dove Bread is eaten throughout the country and enjoyed internationally. The Pastiera/ Neapolitan Easter Pie is a must in the Campania region, while others make Zuccotto/ Florentine Cream-Filled Dome Cake and Sicilians make Cassata Siciliana/ Sicilian Ricotta-Filled Cassata Cake for dessert. See Chapters 18and 19for more information on these sweet treats.