Zuppa di Cozze – Mussels in Tomato Sauce

And a roundup of our seafood recipes for your own Seven Fishes celebration 🐟

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Christmas 2023 is almost here! We’re all thinking about who will be coming over when, what we’ll be cooking and baking, and what we’ll serve.

When Michele and I were growing up, our family celebrated Christmas Eve at our Uncle Nelson’s place with fried smelts and the NYC WPIX Yule log. We also had a big Christmas day family meal at my Aunt Mary’s house, everyone gathered around a big table eating and loudly talking over each other (with an occasional fight thrown in for good measure.) I somewhat shamefully admit that the family and food aspects of Christmas were way more important than the arrival of baby Jesus.

Somewhere along the way, we adopted a full-blown Feast of the Seven Fishes for Christmas Eve dinner, a classic Italian-American tradition, as our own. I think this sprang from our renewed connection with our family in Italy. While the whole seven-fishes thing is an American “abbondanza” creation, fish is traditionally served on Christmas Eve in Italy.

Also, Sicily is still on my mind after our 3-week trip this fall, I have renewed my appreciation for its unique culture, geography, and foods. That visit has only deepened my appreciation for the land of my maternal grandparents and my Italian relatives still there. I’ve been seeing pictures of Sicily all lit up for Christmas and they are beautiful. When it comes to design, festivals, and lights, no one can do it better than the Italians.

During our Sicily trip, I remember eating wonderful meals and desserts. The real revelation was the amount of seafood we found–and consumed! Except for two meals when we had meat, everything we prepared and ate was from the sea. I presume it’s because all of Sicily’s major towns are right on the water. Fishing boats go out every day (except Sunday), so everything is super fresh. If the weather is bad, there’s no fishing or fish to buy. That’s just the way it works.

Every menu we saw in Sicily included a dish called Zuppa di cozze. I have read that this dish is originally from Naples, but it’s a basic way to highlight basic ingredients to make a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Anyone can claim a version of this dish as their own if they have access to good-quality mussels and tomatoes. For your Christmas Eve meal, it would work well as a simple shared appetizer or a small second course.

To prepare this dish and capture its essence, be sure to select the best mussels, tomatoes, and bread you can find. It’s so simple, that you’ll taste every ingredient. When you serve it with some toasted or crusty bread, it’s very filling. You could share the dish by placing a serving bowl in the center of the table with small plates and big spoons for the mussels and the tomato broth.

Get the recipe on OurItalianTable.com!

Merry Christmas! Enjoy your family–or chosen family–for whatever celebrations you have planned.

Here’s a link to some of our past Feast of the Seven Fishes dishes for your own table:

Buon Natale 🎄🎁🇮🇹🤌🎁

Joe