Christmas Eve: Memories of Abbruzzo in Toronto

Christmas is filled with tradition, and for every family this tradition is translated uniquely through the various forms of worship, activity and food. Perhaps the most unifying element of the holiday –and the one that everyone relates to – is gathering around the table and sharing a meal with your friends and loved ones. Being from an Italian background, I can confidently say that, after family, food is pretty much the most important thing regardless of event or circumstance. I have to hand it to my mother and her sisters (natch) – who every year would invite all their siblings, in-laws and their kids over for Vigilia, or Christmas Eve. I remember all of us crammed into my oldest aunt’s basement, mismatched tables and chairs pulled together to accommodate the two dozen or so people. This was otherwise known as the ‘adult table’. The kids always sat (happily) in the next room where we could talk about fun stuff and goof off as we grew more hyper about unwrapping gifts.
The dishes were rustic; replications of the simple yet hearty meals from my mother’s own childhood in Abbruzzo. On la Vigilia, the menu consisted of only fish-based dishes: we started off with cappelini d’angelo con salsa di acciuga (angel hair pasta in a tomato and anchovy sauce), followed by a selection of verza (cabbage) sautéed in garlic and anchovy, faggioli (beans), acciuga fritta con pepperoni (fried anchovies with dried peppers) and baccalà, salt cod prepared in a saucy broth. Side dishes would include polenta, salad and maybe roasted peppers. I always called it quits after the pasta because my young palate deemed the flavours of the other dishes gross, though I have since grown to enjoy them (except for the baccalà – that’s just never going to happen).

Dessert consisted of a selection of donut-like fritters called crispelle, pizzelle (thin waffles) and caggionetti, deep fried pouches that resemble ravioli but are filled a mixture of ground almond, chestnut and chocolate.
As a self-confessed foodie I love all types of cuisine. Over the past several years, I have also had the pleasure of incorporating my boyfriend’s Czech/Polish heritage into the holiday meals. I’m also looking forward to his family’s Christmas dinner of all the things he enjoyed eating since his own childhood: pickerel, bean soup and kapusniak (Polish sauerkraut soup), coleslaw and two types of bobálky , a traditional ‘bread’ served in either a fried sauerkraut or ground poppy seed mixture.

Today, such large gatherings have become too onerous for my mother and aunts to undertake and the younger generations have maintained the tradition only within their immediate families. Within mine, I am next in line to take it over. And I am ready, fork and knife in hand.