CHRISTMAS EVE – PAST AND PRESENT

Christmas time in Salerno 1974 - Campania, like the rest of Italy, was about the family getting together and an excuse for a major ‘festa’ with lots of food, drink and fun.

All the old bottles of brightly coloured aperitifs, sweet liqueurs and bitter herbal digestifs would come out of the closet again and cassettes of traditional music played by ‘zampugnari’ on traditional bagpipes would fill the room with wailing folk songs sung in incomprehensible dialect; the noisy clatter of pans, dishes and conversation filled the house as the meal was being prepared because everybody was required to arrive early to ‘dare una mano’ or lend a hand with laying tables and cooking dishes.

Christmas Eve was the main Christmas dinner and based around fish; Spaghetti with clams, fried eel or salt cod, steamed bass or dentex (dentice) - a type of bream, dressed with oil and lemon, pickled vegetable salad followed by panettone, little mignon pastries, bowls of seasonal fruit( no apples though, no one wants to be reminded of The Original Sin at this time of year), nuts and strufoli, little fried dough balls sticky with honey. After dinner we always played Tombola, Italian bingo with 5 winners for every round.
Christmas day usually featured Capon, a big old bird with meat and bread stuffing and home made pasta baked with meatballs, boiled eggs, ham and cheeses or cannelloni with ricotta on top of the many antipasti and fish.

The menu below is what our family will be eating on Christmas Eve this year, I am still waiting for this years new Montepulciano d’Abbruzzo from Zaccagnini, my favourite vino for dinner and the Amaro Averna is already is in the cabinet- roll on Christmas!
Cenone della vigilia di Natale

Insalata e’ rinforz’
Cauliflower and pickled vegetable salad

Friaelli zuffritti co l'alice salate
Sautéed Neapolitan broccoli with anchovies

‘O Baccala’
Fried salt cod

Spigola vollute
Poached sea bass with olive oil and lemon

Vermicielli co la mollica de pane e vongolelle
Pasta with palourde clams, parsley, chilli, garlic, breadcrumbs and fruity olive oil

Cassuola de calamarielli e scampi
Squid and langostine casserole

Caccos e' doce
Something sweet; Strufoli, panettone, mignon pastries, seasonal fruit and nuts