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Feasts and Family: Europeans celebrate Christmas Eve with food and humility
• by By Andrea Hellmann • Photo by Allyson Mace
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Every branch on a tree sprouts from the same roots, but not every branch is the same. This idea of same roots, different branches can be applied to three Christmas Eve feasts celebrated in Europe: France’s 13 Desserts, Poland’s Wigilia and Italy’s Feast of Seven Fishes.
Although culture, location and time have made the traditions different, these three feasts have the same base, the Catholic religion. For a long time, the Catholic Church forbade meat to be eaten on Christmas Eve. In Poland and parts of France and Italy, the meatless meal was turned into a celebratory feast. The role of symbolism in these Christmas Eve meals is great, expressed primarily through the belief that a certain number of sacred dishes must be served.
Sweet celebration
When you hear of the 13 Desserts of the Provence region in France, you likely think of 13 cakes and pastries. However, the 13 Desserts celebrated on Christmas Eve is composed of far simpler sweets.
“The idea is not to bake something fancy,” said Anna Amelung, a French teacher at University City High School. “The point is to celebrate the fruits of the season. If one really wants to stick to the tradition, one has to use what is grown locally and seasonally.”
Although the desserts have changed over time, O’Fallon, Mo., resident Isabelle Heidbreder recalled the original 13 desserts she had while growing up in Provence: pompe à huile (a flat pastry made with olive oil and orange flower water), green melon, quince paste (a jelly-like dessert), black and white nougats, raisins, dates, oranges and the four mendiants. Mendiant means “monk” in French, and the mendiants – dried figs, hazelnuts, raisins and almonds – have the colors of different orders of French monks. Other desserts may include apples, bananas, candied fruit, apricots, homemade jellies, grapes, little cookies and most recently, bûche de Noël, a log-shaped cake.
Although the tradition varies, many partakers begin Christmas Eve with the gros souper, or the grand supper. This is traditionally composed of meatless dishes, such as fish, shellfish, gratins, vegetables, omelets, aïoli, snails and goat cheese. The meal is topped off with the 13 desserts. The table for this grand Christmas Eve feast is traditionally covered with three tablecloths on top of each other and three candles representing the Holy Trinity. In the middle of table, Heidbreder remembered a big, round bread surrounded by 12 little breads.
Tradition calls for 13 desserts and 13 breads because there were 12 apostles, plus Jesus, at the Last Supper. The number of desserts may vary, though, depending on what fruits and nuts were abundant in the area. “You might have more than 13 desserts, but for good luck you are only supposed to eat 13 and you keep count,” Heidbreder said. “And there will be a communication going around the table to make sure everyone gets that No. 13.”
A holiday of work and play
There is a lot of work to be done on Christmas Eve for the Polish. Families spend the day cooking, baking and doing housework, so the next two holidays can be devoted to eating, relaxing and visiting. Despite the busy schedule, the Polish generally consider Wigilia, the traditional Christmas Eve feast, more important than Christmas Day itself.
Ewa Krupinska, a St. Charles resident who moved from northeast Poland to the United States five years ago, said her family always prepares 12 meatless dishes for Wigilia. These 12 dishes represent the 12 apostles or the 12 good months of the year.
Before digging into the food, the family shares the oplatek. They break apart this thin wafer, similar to altar bread, and wish good wishes for the year to come. Ewa Bachminska, who came to St. Louis from Poland to study music in 2000, said her family would then eat the feast in stages. They would start with barszcz z uszkami, a beet broth with mushroom-filled dumplings, and move on to fried fish, fish and jelly, and potatoes. For dessert they would have poppy-seed cake and gingerbread cookies. Because the food varies slightly from region to region, other dishes may include mushroom and plum soup, pickled herring, carp, lentils and sauerkraut, beets with horseradish and pierogi.
The setup for the Wigilia table is important. Krupinska said they must have a white tablecloth with dried grass or hay on the tablecloth in memory of baby Jesus in the manger. The tradition of leaving an extra spot for an unexpected guest is also widespread across Poland.
Feast of abundance
Because Catholics couldn’t eat meat on Christmas Eve and there was an abundance of fish in southern Italy, it made sense to have a giant fish feast. The Feast of the Seven Fishes is particularly prevalent in southern Italy.
The Feast of Seven Fishes is really a poor man’s holiday, according to Giuseppina Lombardo of South County. Lombardo, who was born in Sicily, noted that it’s said the tradition began as a cost-saving measure; each family member went to the ocean and brought something back for the feast. This was cheaper than buying meat (“The ocean is free,” she noted), which was saved for the Christmas meal.
Traditionally, baccalà, or dried salted cod, is the most common Christmas Eve dish for southern Italians. You must soak the fish for a day or two to get rid of the salt, which is used as a preservative. Other popular dishes include octopus with prunes and stewed vegetables, clams with pasta, shrimp, whitefish, swordfish, squid, mussels and sardines. Some families put all seven fishes in one stew called cioppino.
The reason behind the number seven is a little unclear. Some say it is the number of days it took to create the earth; others attribute it to the seven sacraments, the seven holy gifts, the seven sorrows of the Blessed Mother or the seven hills of Rome.
Florissant’s Marianne Peri Sack, English editor of Il Pensiero newspaper, said she never celebrated with a certain number of fish dishes while growing up with her Italian heritage in St. Louis, though she always ate fish on Christmas Eve. “People come from different little villages,” Sack said. “In every little village they do things a little different. Nothing is the exact same.”
Maryann Coletti of The Hill would regularly celebrate the holiday at her grandmother’s house with 20 to 30 family members and friends. She remembered the women being in the kitchen most of the day cooking and then serving the kids and dads. When she moved to Lohman, a small town in central Missouri, in 1980, she tried to continue the tradition on her own.
“I scrambled to try to find seven fishes,” Coletti said. “There was no fresh fish, so I had to get creative. I had tuna fish on top of pasta, fish sticks, catfish and frozen shrimp.”
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Feast of Seven Fishes Baccalà Stew (With Prunes)
Courtesy of Maryann Coletti
If using traditional salted cod (baccalà), soak it in cold water in the refrigerator for 3 days, changing water every 2 to 4 hours. Or you can use fresh codfish.
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil
1 16-oz. can diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp. parsley
2 Tbsp. pine nuts
2 Tbsp. raisins (soaked in water for half an hour and drained before using)
1 cup prunes (soaked in water for half an hour and drained before using)
2 1/2 lbs. codfish fillets
Salt and pepper to taste
• Sauté the chopped garlic in the olive oil.
• Add the pine nuts and sauté briefly, about 1 minute.
• Add the parsley, tomatoes, raisins, prunes and fish. Season to taste.
• Cook for 30 to 40 minutes.
Wigilia Carp
Courtesy of Ewa Bachminska
Carp fillets (the flatter the better)
Salt
Polish fish spices, such as Knorr Delikat do ryb*, divided
Flour
Eggs, slightly beaten
Plain breadcrumbs
Margarine or butter
Dill
• Rinse the carp fillets in cold water.
• Cut each fillet into 3 pieces. Salt them lightly on both sides.
• Coat the fillets with most of the Polish fish spices. Leave them for half an hour.
• Coat the fish in flour, then dip them in the eggs and breadcrumbs.
• Fry the fish in margarine or butter over a low flame.
• Add the remaining Polish fish spices and dill on top of the fried fish. The fish tastes the best if you serve it right after frying.
*Available at European specialty grocers.
Wigilia Pierogi With Sauerkraut and Mushroom Filling
Courtesy of Ewa Krupinska
Dough:
2 1/2 cups flour (could be as much as 3 cups)
2 Tbsp. sour cream
1 egg
1/2 cup lukewarm water
Pinch of salt
• Mix all the ingredients together and knead briefly. The dough should be rather sticky, but smooth enough for rolling.
• Let the dough stand covered for a half hour before using.
• Take all or a portion of the dough and roll until it is 1/16-inch thick. Use plenty of flour to prevent the dough from sticking to the rolling pin, as well as to the surface and your hands.
Filling:
1 1/4-oz. bag dried mushrooms
1 large onion, chopped
2 lbs. sauerkraut
1 Tbsp. sugar
Pinch of salt
Black pepper to taste
• Soak the mushrooms in water for a half an hour before using; drain and then chop them.
• Sauté the chopped onion.
• Add the mushrooms, sauerkraut and all the remaining ingredients. Fry until soft.
• Put a large pot of water on to boil. Add at least a couple of tablespoons of salt. This is for cooking the pierogi.
• After rolling the dough, cut out circles between 3 and 4 inches in diameter.
• Next, add a dab of filling to each circle. Use your own judgment here of how much filling you want in your pierogi. Keep in mind that you will have to close and seal them for cooking. (Good advice here is to have 1 side of the circle edge wet and then stretch the other half to the wet edge, and with your fingers seal the edges tightly together).
• Make sure that there are no holes in the pierogi; otherwise, the filling will spill out. If the pierogi look too thin, dip them in flour before putting them in the boiling water.
• Make sure the water is boiling at all times; otherwise the pierogi will stick to one another. Put the pierogi in the pot of boiling water, covered, for 10 to 12 minutes.
• Optional: Top the mushroom pierogi with onion fried in butter.
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