The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American tradition that takes place on Christmas Eve. In Italy, it's called La Vigilia di Natale, literally Christmas Eve, and stems from a long-standing Roman Catholic decree forbidding meat consumption on the eve of a feast day.

Why seven fishes? No one is quite sure, but many believe it's a religious symbol. The number seven, after all, appears hundreds of times throughout the Bible and is significant in Catholicism, so it’s likely that the feast may represent the seven sacraments, the seven virtues, or even the seven deadly sins.

The tradition is thought to have originated in southern Italy, with its abundant access to seafood from both the Tyrrhenian and Adriatic Seas. As southern Italians immigrated to the United States in large numbers during the late 1800s and early 1900s, they brought their annual fish feast with them, establishing the tradition in places like Little Italy in New York and beyond.

While some highly traditional fish dishes like eel, baccala (salt cod), scungilli (conch meat), and frutti di mare (shellfish) continue to be served during the feast, most Italian American families mark the occasion by preparing seven seafood recipes cherished within their family. This celebration typically includes various side dishes and, of course, plenty of vino (wine).

During my childhood, for some reason, my family didn't partake in the tradition of a fish feast on Christmas Eve despite my grandparents migrating from Naples in the early 1900s. My grandmother was an excellent cook, and I fondly remember the Christmas day dinner table laden with heaping plates of antipasti, pasta with marinara sauce, sautéed vegetables (cheese and breadcrumb-stuffed mushrooms were my favorite!), Italian bread, and all sorts of fried and roasted meats.

But I have no recollection of eating fish the night before Christmas. The reason for this sad reality could be that when my family first arrived in America, they settled in Vermont, where it wasn’t as easy to procure fresh seafood as it would have been in cities like New York City or Boston.

As a major fan of seafood, I decided it was time to start my own family’s Feast of the Seven Fishes tradition, and we’ve been celebrating for over 30 years now. Admittedly, sometimes seven becomes six, with the annual homemade triple chocolate pudding taking the seventh spot at the finish line. And now that my three daughters are all grown up, the preparation has evolved, and each of them is responsible for preparing a dish, leaving me in charge of only four – a fact I'm not complaining about!

We don’t just stick with Italian classics, either. We’ve made the tradition our own by incorporating flavors and cooking techniques from around the world that everyone in the family loves. We might start off with sesame-seasoned salmon crudo or spicy Cajun shrimp and end with tuna drizzled with wasabi mayonnaise, but the spirit of the fish-fueled evening hails from my Campania-born Italian ancestors.

Here are seven favorite fish dishes, including wine pairing suggestions, for your feast—be it on December 24th or any day of the year.

Buon Natale!