Carol of the Smelts

It’s Christmas Eve, and today my family will gather together for our very own Feast of the Three Fishes. Yes, yes, I know that it is supposed to be Seven Fishes, and while we celebrate many other fish in our hearts, on Christmas Eve we only eat three-anchovies, smelts and shrimp.

You don’t have to be Italian to love anchovies, but it helps. My mouth is watering just thinking about the anchovies that will be prepared with oil in angel hair pasta, a long time traditional family dish that my husband has been refining and fine-tuning each year. I have never met anyone who is neutral about anchovies – you either love ‘em or hate ‘em. Despite the controversy, the anchovy has found its way into the menus of fine gourmet restaurants – it is an ingredient in the most traditional Caesar salads.

Not so the lowly smelt. It is often referred to as a salmon-like or “salmonoid” fish, but I don’t see the similarity. It doesn’t look or taste like salmon, and in fact the only relationship I can see is the fact that smelts are food to the salmon. Salmon is a favorite menu item in restaurants, but you will very rarely find a smelt dish on that same menu. I only enjoy smelts on Christmas Eve, but I look forward to having them all year. Despite all this, at our Christmas Eve celebration the smelts have been the subject of more thought, care and planning than any other item.

My husband, who nows whips up the best fried smelts in the world for my family each Christmas Eve, inherently understood and embraced the significance of the smelt in our family tradition. To celebrate that tradition, he penned “Carol of the Smelts,” sung to the tune of “Carol of the Bells.” He and I sing this for the family every year before we eat our Christmas Eve meal, whether they like it or not.

I give you "Carol of the Smelts":

Let's get the smelts
Let's buy the smelts
Gotta find smelts
Who sells the smelts?

We got the smelts
Let's clean the smelts
Season the smelts
Fry up the smelts

We cannot stand the
Smelts; they're too bland. The
Oil isn't hot, the
Hell! Why the bother?

Smelts are very, very, very yummy
They're a special present for the tummy!

Oh, let's just eat,
Smelts are a treat.
It's Christmas time.
These smelts are fine.

Dine, dine, dine - gone!

Our Miraculous Season - Eight Nights and Seven Fishes

The first time I observed Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, was the year I started dating my husband. My husband explained that we would be exchanging eight small gifts, one to be opened each evening of the festival. Like stocking stuffers, I thought, only they didn’t have to be physically small enough to fit into the stocking.

On the eighth night my husband opened his last present from me. It was a day-to-day calendar on a topic I thought he might like. Then it was my turn. In the gift bag he handed to me was a book on planning an interfaith wedding ceremony, and a typewritten note. The note explained that the eighth day of Hanukkah, which celebrates the miracle of oil that burned for eight days when it should have lasted for one, coincided with the eighth month anniversary of the miracle of our love, and asked me if I would consent to be his wife. He then presented me with the engagement ring. For this Italian Catholic Gentile, the “miracle of Hanukkah” now had a very personal meaning.

Each year, my husband, son and I celebrate Hanukkah (or Chanukah if you prefer). Each evening, my husband and I light the candles of the hanukkiah, which is a special menorah used for Hanukkah, and my husband says a prayer in Hebrew blessing the lights and the occasion. We each open a present. My son comes over one day during the eight-day festival week to celebrate, and brings a small present for each of us. He is happy to accept eight small presents from us.

A few years ago, my son arrived for our Hanukkah celebration carrying a beautiful poinsettia as a gift for me. When my mother was still alive, I would bring her a poinsettia every year at Christmas. My son remembered that and felt that it was time for that tradition to continue. Now each year I receive a Christmas poinsettia from my son as a Hanukkah present. We also decorate the Christmas tree that day, after enjoying a traditional Hanukkah meal of homemade latkes (potato pancakes) with apple sauce and sour cream.

My family has always celebrated Christmas on Christmas Eve, which is the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a tradition among the people of Southern Italy and Sicily, where my grandparents were born. These traditions probably have their origins in the observance of the Cena della Vigilia, the wait for the miraculous birth of Christ in which early Catholics fasted on Christmas Eve until after receiving communion at Midnight Mass. According to my family, Christmas Eve had at one time been a Fast Day, when Catholics had to abstain specifically from eating meat. So, we celebrated Christmas by eating all kinds of fish, and exchanging presents. Midnight Mass was also part of the tradition, one we chose not to follow. No one really knows why there are seven fishes, and different families choose different fish.

When I was growing up, we celebrated the holiday at my Aunt Connie’s house, with the entire extended family. There were actually seven fishes, including squid, eel, shrimp, baccala (i.e. dried salted cod), clams, anchovies in angel hair pasta, and most importantly, smelts.

Over the years, as the family grew, and the kids grew up, my immediate family started celebrating the holiday on its own. We trimmed the menu to the three fishes we actually liked, which were the anchovies (in pasta and on homemade pizza), shrimp and smelts. Eventually, lasagna replaced the pizza, which was later replaced by my sister’s much-loved and anticipated stuffed shells. Meat is now a part of the meal, along with the fish.

The first year my husband spent Christmas with my family was also the first Christmas after my mother passed away. My mother had always made the fried smelts for Christmas Eve, which to me, anyway, was the most important part of the meal. I agreed to take responsibility for the smelts, but the person who really stepped in to save the smelts was my husband. My husband is a trained chef with a degree from the Culinary Institute of America. He produced fried smelts the likes of which the family had never experienced. He cemented his place not just in the hearts of my family but in our Christmas celebration as well. He also participates in the annual Family Grab Bag- exchanging presents seems to be the great constant in all our traditions.

Since we celebrate Christmas Eve with my family, we do very little on Christmas Day. We just relax, try to recover from all the fish consumption, and enjoy our newly acquired presents. One year, “Dreamgirls” was opening at a local cineplex on Christmas Day, and we decided that it was the perfect time to see it. We decided that we might like to get a little dinner on the way home, and found that a gourmet Chinese restaurant that we liked in Squirrel Hill was open. And so another tradition was born – we now celebrate what my husband always jokingly told me was a Jewish Christmas- Chinese food and a movie. The merging of the traditions was complete!

It’s all about miracles, really- this season in which we celebrate our various religious and ethnic holidays. Whether it’s the miracle of one days’ worth of oil that lasted for eight when the Maccabees reclaimed their temple, or the miracle of the birth of Jesus Christ who was born to save humankind, it’s about God giving people what they need to make it through. For our family, blending our traditions and eventually creating some of our own has evolved naturally, with love and respect for each other and our cultures. And that is our miracle.

May you and yours experience your own miracles this season.