Hooked on the Feast of the Seven Fishes
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is as Italian as spaghetti and meatballs, garlic bread with melted cheese, chicken Parm, Al Pacino and The Sopranos. In other words, it ain’t. But it is, like those other iconic classics, Italian-American, just as fabulous, with roots firmly planted in New York and Southern Italy.
The feast is a traditional part of the Italian-American Christmas Eve celebration, and is believed to have been derived from the Southern Italian Roman Catholic tradition of La Vigilia, a celebration that commemorates the wait for the birth of baby Jesus. It first came to prominence in New York City’s Little Italy in the late 19th century.
The meal is rich in symbolism: The number seven is thought by many to represent the seven sacraments of the Roman Catholic Church, still others say it signifies the seven hills of Rome, while others speculate that the seven is for the famous “seventh day” of rest and the completion of God’s promise to save His people through Jesus. Meanwhile, some Italian-Americans observe the Feast of the 12 Fishes, to represent each of Jesus’ apostles.
Fish itself, meanwhile, was likely chosen to denote the non-meat fast observed by Roman Catholics before religious days of celebration. In Italy, fish was also considered magro, or thin; food consumed by people who couldn’t afford meat. Each Capital Region community has its own Little Italy, and in each one, traditional Seven Fishes feasts are consumed with abandon, by, well, pretty much everyone who likes Italian food, an excuse for a culinary adventure and fish.
Take Katie Haskins, co-owner of Hooked Seafood Co. in Latham, with her husband, Luke Haskins. She doesn’t have a drop of Italian blood in her veins as far as she knows, but she has embraced the beauty and richness of the feast since childhood.
“I grew up around here, and members of my extended family are of Italian descent, and I have such vivid memories of feasts from childhood,” Katie says. “Everything about it blew me away, from the dishes they served, to the celebration and togetherness it created.”
What are the rules for the feast? The same as the ones for dinner at your favorite red sauce joint: Come with a big appetite, and an open mind and heart, and pretty much anything goes. You can make seven separate dishes, each with a different fish, or you can take a short-cut and make a fish stew with several fish and a starter and a side dish.
All fish is fair game, though baccalà (dried salted cod) is frequently a component. Other popular fish such as anchovies, sardines, lobster, smelts, shrimp, scallops and scungilli appear a lot. As does plenty of pasta and wine.
“Three days in the kitchen preparing seven separate dishes for a crowd of hungry people sounds like heaven to me, but I realize it’s probably not for everyone,” Katie admits. She and Luke, both 37, opened Hooked in Latham in 2016, with the goal of not just selling the best fish they could source but also creating fromscratch meals that people could bring home with them.
“My passion for fish and hospitality is boundless,” Katie says. “I could eat fish for every meal and never get sick of it. It’s so versatile, there are so many possibilities, textures, flavors to tease out of the fish and play up in a finished dish. Which is also why I fell for the feast and have made it a part of my own Christmas Eve tradition at home and at Hooked.”
Katie and Luke believe that fish is misunderstood, and not just because people don’t take full advantage of how many things can be done with it, and how many types of fish there are to eat. (Fun fact: Of the 32,000+ edible fish species in the sea, the 10 most popular types make up about 90% of the volume sold in the U.S.)
First, there’s the freshness factor.
“We get all of our fish from three top-notch purveyors in Boston,” Katie explains. “It’s never frozen, which means it changes a lot season to season. At Hooked, we prioritize integrity and quality above all else. Integrity comes first. There is so much misinformation floating out there, and I think that a lot of fishmongers would prefer to tell customers what they want to hear, instead of what’s accurate. But we believe they deserve to know.”
There’s also the farm factor.
“The biggest misconception we run into is that farmed fish is bad,” Katie says. “Farmed fish is bad if you don’t know where it’s coming from, and understand the supply chain. That’s why we only work with these three purveyors, because their philosophy aligns with ours. It’s like farmed chicken. You have to know the farmer, understand the life the chicken leads, the food it gets. We get phenomenal farmed fish raised nearby in a sustainable and humane way.”
Farmed fish, she says, also allows Hooked to sell perennial favorites—like salmon—year-round.
“Wild salmon is highly seasonal,” Katie says. “Our customers know now to check for specials to get the best freshly caught wild options. Today, for example, we’ll be promoting halibut cheeks.” And while the foundation of Katie and Luke’s business is built on a desire to provide high-quality, responsibly raised fish, it manifests itself through Hooked’s thoughtful service and care for customers.
“Beginning around October, we start getting orders from customers for the Feast of the Seven Fishes,” Katie says. “They know to order ahead, so we can plan. Holidays work like clockwork here, even with the challenges of COVID. And our specialty as we see it is scratch-made dishes. We make everything in-house, even our mayo, and offer a cooler full of items like crab cakes, Asian fish burgers, swordfish empanadas. For the feast, customers will order things like seafood stew, or baccalà cooked confit style with olive oil and garlic then baked off with Parmesan cheese and crositini. Scungilli. Fish in red sauce, or clam sauce. Shrimp cocktail, mussels.”
And the list goes on. And on, even into unexpected, non-watery territories. Hooked is moving, and growing. By the time you read this, Katie and Luke will be in their new home, just down the street in Latham. And in addition to fish, they’ll be offering meat, dairy, produce, all sourced from the local fields and farms of the Capital District.
“We are so excited for this next step,” Katie says. “We have been so proud to show what we can do with fish and our scratch cooking, but we feel like this will be an entirely different level of culinary excellence.”
Served with the passion for integrity, quality and seasonality that Hooked us all on them to begin with.
How to Prepare Baccalà (Salted Dried Cod)
Soak and rinse the dried, salted fish several times, then submerge in olive oil with plenty of onions and garlic. Cook at 250 degrees for about an hour. Drain from the oil (reserve oil for another use) and mix well with boiled potatoes, parsley, salt and pepper until spreadable. Pour into baking dish and top with Parmesan. Bake until golden and serve with crusty bread.
