Christmas in Calabria

A Family Christmas Eve dinner in Calabria



In many regions of Italy, we celebrate our Italian culture and Christmas Eve with local traditions and foods. A family Christmas Eve in Calabria is a special celebration and a time when the Calabresse families get together in a large mass. Sometimes, you wonder if these family members at the dinner table were just extra people who joined the celebration from an early mass at Church. “No relax” there just distant cousins you haven’t seen for years and who happened to walk in uninvited. It doesn’t matter ..there is always enough food to go around.

Your mouth starts to water as you stare down at an overflowing, delicious dinner table, while cursing at your last walk-in relative Giovanni, "telling him in the most polite way possible to shut his trap and sit his ass down", so you can start eating and not fainting from a long day of starvation, while preparing yourself for this Christmas Eve dinner.

After a few home grown root based liqueurs, which includes an early mouthful of family insults and greetings, we loosen up our belts for the beginning of round one of family fued..sorry Christmas dinner. Yes.. inhaling the aroma of love, accompanied with the typical Seafood Extravaganza of our Calabrian Christmas Eve Dinner, followed by an assortment of typical Christmas desserts and more insults. No! “not pass the salt” actual loving insults. You know …the innocent ones like when Uncle Joe tells Aunt Maria she looks like she put on weight, meanwhile she is expecting her 5th child next month.

Now its time for our traditional “lucky 13” dishes of food to arrive. We start off with assorted appetizers that include jaw breaking grispelle, yeasted fried dough and just for Christmas there stuffed with salted anchovies, bottarga from the historical sea port town of Pizzo, a wonderful delicacy (tuna roe preserved with salt) served with homemade preserved olives and stuffed mussels. As if we Calabresse actually need more hot blood rushing thru our veins, but hold on. We haven’t even cracked open a bottle of wine (jugs).

All jokes aside, it now gets serious at the dinner table (this is when we all start talking about our ailments) as we stuff our faces with subsequent courses (ha!} of pasta with Baccala, Swordfish rolls braised in a tomato, olives and caper sauce, a salt cod salad, a
cauliflower salad and lets not forget a salad of escarole.

All of sudden the room starts to heat up with money arguments, you know … Salvatore, I lent you 200 last year and I stilling waiting for it. After a long accounting discussion, we prepare for our dessert buffet which includes Cicirata, little pieces of dough fried and coated with honey, Cannariculi, or Turdiddi, which are made from the same type of dough but shaped like large gnocchi, “come on you remember” Turdiddi “. We were so sick of eating them after Christmas, we would take them to school for lunch and throw them at our beloved friends in class.

Our classic dessert of Chinulle, a pastry shaped like Ravioli stuffed with chestnuts, chocolate, and lots of other goodies and then drizzled with honey. No dessert buffet would be complete without the traditional dessert of Calabria, Dried figs stuffed with almonds and coated with chocolate.

At this point, we are totally stuffed with food, wine and bullshit.. that are biggest challenge of the evening is trying to hug and kiss everyone good nite, as we head home for our nite cap "passionate love".

Boun Natale!
Discover Calabria

The Calabrian Christmas Eve Menu

Olive Verdi schiacciate
(Homemade cracked green olives marinated with garlic,
wild fennel seeds and peperoncino)

Grispelle con Acciughe
(Yeasted dough fried with anchovies)

Tartine con Bottarga di Pizzo
(Toasted bread topped with bottarga)

Cozze Gratinate
(Mussels stuffed with breadcrumbs mixture)

Spaghetti con Sugo di Baccala
(Spaghetti with salted cod cooked in a tomato sauce)

Braciole di Pesce Spada alla Ghiotta
(Swordifsh rolls stuffed and braised in a tomato, onion,
capers and olive sauce)


Insalata di Baccala e Patate
(Baccala with potatoes, capers, lemon juice and olive
oil)

Insalata di Cavolfiore
(Cauliflower salad)

Insalata di Scarola
(Green salad of escarole)

Cicirata
(Deep fried dough coated with honey)

Cannariculi
(Deep fried dough shaped like gnocchi)

Chinulle
(Pastries filled with chestnuts)


Fichi al cioccolato
(Figs stuffed with almonds and coated with chocolate)

Attached Thumbnails