Warm Memories: The Italian Family Reunion Dinner
Thousands and thousands of books have been written about Italian cuisine (and the healthiest Mediterranean Diet, suggested by many nutritionists). It is considered one of the best in the world and, of course, if you might ask any Italian, he will answer that for him the Italian gastronomy does, is really the best. While this last opinion is debatable, as everybody more or less would consider his hometown cuisine the best, by the way what renders Italian cuisine world spread is the dedication, time, feeling, pleasure, creativity and art that Italians put in it. This makes the difference. We are speaking about cultural values, passion, love for art and tradition, and not about food anymore. But why is it like that?
One important factor is its variety, and its unique historical, geographical, cultural, climate, weather conditions which develop an incredible gamma of products from wine to wheat, olive oil, tomatoes, fruits, vegetables, fish and many others. But the social behaviour and relations, which enhance the artistic creativity and combination of food, are a value added which people often underestimate. One of the moments when we can realize this perfect concoction of “transversal ingredients” is during the Family Reunion Dinner. In it, the seasonal ingredients, the festivity period, the family gathering all together give a good idea of the power of fantasy and ability of the Italian gastronomy.
I always keep a warm memory of my childhood, when my grandma Maria Stella, her sister, my mother, my auntie, my siblings and a 8 year-old-me worked together for hours and days in the kitchen, preparing the dough for tortellini, the filling for them, the broth, and other food. It was all the family working together in preparation of the Christmas Dinner and this fact gave the food a sacred taste. We children were initiated to the real meaning of Italian Cuisine this way.
Christmas Dinner, as the words say, is the sum of Christmas and Dinner! Christmas is an important event, almost magical, for Italian families. At Christmas we conventionally celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Son of God for Christians, born in Bethlehem in a manger. After a preparatory period of prayer and reflection (Advent, 5 Sundays before Christmas, and the Novena, the nine days before), about midnight the believers go to church for the night vigil the night before. [This serves as a transit to the mystery of the birth of the God who became man and enters the history of mankind. Therefore, after people give the finishing touches to the crib, we are preparing for the midnight mass in a wait that aims to incarnate the present and real miracle of Jesus’s birth].
Dinner in Italy is the most typical celebration of aggregation for the family, since most members have already returned home from work, and this meeting after a hard day’s work is often expressed in rich dinners, or Cenoni (big dinners) as on this occasion. The evening of December 24 is therefore a very important moment for Italian families, because it’s a moment to be together. We will meet for dinner on Christmas Eve.
Days before the Christmas Eve you will arrange appointment with relatives, siblings and friends to meet for the special moment and preparing gifts for all members as a thought for everyone. In short, the Christmas dinner is the time when the whole family, from grandparents to grandchildren and far-away-relatives, tries to meet each other fully, at least once a year to celebrate, eat, talk and play together.
In Italy -in contrast to other European countries and North American Christians who follow the custom of most Eve dinner- you can celebrate on the evening of 24 Dec or lunch on 25 Dec, depending on the areas and regions.
[In addition, in some areas of Southern Italy and South Tyrol, Midnight between 24 and 25 December is a custom to play at home, a procession opened by a candle followed by the smallest of the family bearing the statue of the Child Jesus and the rest of the family singing Christmas Carrols like “Tu scendi dalle Stelle” (You come down from the stars), “Astro del Ciel” (Silent Night) or “Venite Fedeli” (Come here, believers); which procession ends with the arrival at the crib, kiss the little boy and the repositioning of the same over the crib of the Nativity].
Christmas therefore is not just a religious and traditional festival felt much by the faithful. Family- and modern-feast values, perceived by non-believers, added to its original value, making it a consumerism event characterized by a rich dinner and the exchange of gifts at midnight.
[There are many Christmas traditions, largely shared with and by the rest of the world: Santa Claus, La Befana, Epiphany, socks with sugar or coal, “cotechino or zampone” (knuckle sausage), cakes, panettone, nougat, champagne, the exchange of gifts, greetings each other, kissing under the mistletoe, the use of decorations, fireworks, Nativity crib statues, the game of bingo and Italian cards. These are some of the customs that are prepared before the Carnival and the subsequent period of Lent].
In Rome, my hometown, it is a characteristic to go to the charming Piazza Navona, full of markets selling everything, in St. Peter’s Basilica for the Mass and visit the Nativity, real works of art in which the Neapolitans are the undisputed masters, in churches and museums. In Italy and especially in Rome, Christmas has a unique atmosphere.
Italian cuisine has hundreds of regional dishes according to the tradition in the festivities of Christmas and New Year’s Eve, quite different one from the other, with someone emphasizing on fish, others on vegetables, and others on meat or pasta courses.
Unlike the UK cuisine, where the culinary traditions feature bright on the traditional Italian Christmas dinner platter, there’s no set meal for Christmas in Italy. Rather, each region in the country has evolved its own set of Italian Christmas dinner recipes according to its geographic position and cultural influence, and there is a lot of similarity in the nature of the dishes and the meal size in the traditional Italian Christmas dinner.
The various Italian Christmas dinner recipes include all the staple ingredients like olives, meatballs, pasta and vinegar. On the Christmas Eve or the Vigilia di Natale, the traditional Italian Christmas dinner comprises meat free meals and all kinds of fish delicacies. Some of the most popularly cooked items include roast sea bass, baccala, ravioli or tortellini di magro and bruschetta. These dishes hold the main attraction of the traditional Italian Christmas dinner, especially in Southern Italy and Sicily. On the Christmas Day or Natale, salami, Parma ham, prosecco sparkling wine, agnolotti, panettone and pandolce are popularly eaten as a part of the traditional Italian Christmas dinner. On the next day or the Boxing Day, stuffed tortelloni, meat pasta and dishes made of lentils make up a major portion of the traditional Italian Christmas dinner menu.
Each region has its own culinary characteristics and some, especially in the south, have a duty of 13 (tredici!) courses, but the only feature common to almost all regional recipes is the presence of fish (also because ‘Italy is for its ¾ a peninsula surrounded by the sea and is rich in the great products of the Mediterranean, an especially salty sea): the evening before the eel (capitone) is found on many Italian tables, particularly in Abruzzo, Lazio, Marche and Campania.
Therefore I would need to write a book, and not an article, about Italian Family Reunion Dinner! Stay calm & behave like an Italian to fully enjoy my Standard Family Reunion recipes and train on them for one year before the next Eve, and get ready for an Italian Christmas Dinner! In case if I am not with my family in Italy, please invite me…
1. TORTELLINI/RAVIOLI IN BRODO (Italian stuffed dumplings with broth)
Serves 4 Prep 60 min (including preparation of tortellini or ravioli) Cook 45 min
EASY
The warmth and health of home-prepared food. The broth is the simplest and most typical main course of the families during winter time.
2 litres of water (add more if needed during evaporation)
2 carrots, washed
2 American celery sticks, washed
1 tomato, washed
1 onion, peeled
½ tsp salt
1 potato, rosemary, marjoram, juniper, thyme, olive oil, chicken bones (optional)
1 package of Tortellini or ravioli, minced meat flavour
100 gr Grilled Parmigiano Reggiano
If you want to prepare tortellini or ravioli you need for dough:
300g flour
3 eggs
5g salt
Herbs and spices (optional)
Filling:
100g of minced chicken meat
100g of minced beef or pork meat
50g grated Italian parmigiano
Black pepper, marjoram (optional)
-
For the Broth: wash the vegetables, peel the onion prepare a pot with two litres of water inside, put all the vegetables and boil at average temperature. In order to enhance the flavour you can fry the vegetables in olive oil first and add other herbs like rosemary, marjoram, juniper, thyme. You can add potatoes; anyway they give a turbid colour to the broth. You can add chicken bones in order to give it the chicken flavour.
-
Boil it 30 minutes, till the onion becomes transparent.
-
For tortellini or ravioli, you can buy them at any good gastronomy shop or prepare by yourself buying a rolled dough sheet or preparing with ingredients at ambient temperature. This way you can enhance the flavour of the dough with herbs and spices. Same way you can enhance the filling in them. It can be done with simple ingredients (one or two) till more complex ones of the traditional recipes.
-
If you want to prepare the filling by yourself, mix minced chicken meat and pork (or beef) together with one egg and spices.
-
Alternative filling can be with: meat (usually a mix of different meat like pork, chicken, beef, turkey, parmigiano, egg, spices and herbs); spinach, parmigiano and ricotta; crab, mascarpone, lemon, parsley and chili paddy; cheese and marjoram; herbs, ricotta, parmigiano and garlic; pumpkin cream, ham, mozzarella and parsley; many others.
-
Prepare the sheets of dough and pour the filling with your hands or a teaspoon on the left side at intervals one from each other, at imaginary squares. Leave some space from the border and in order to cover it with the right side of the dough.
-
Brush the empty space around the filling with some water.
-
Turn the right side over the left one and cover the filling. Cut with a knife and stick the faces with a fork.
-
When pour tortellini into the boiling broth, remember they require just a few minutes to be just right.
-
Serve with grated Parmigiano Reggiano.
Per Serving XXX kcals, protein XXXg, carbs XXXg, fat XXXg, sat fat XXXg, fiber XXXg, sugar XXXg, salt XXXg
2. Zampone or Cotechino with Lentils
Serves 6 Prep 30 min Cook 90 min
EASY
Zampone is ground pork stuffed in the skin of a pig’s leg. It represents the purse, while lentils represent the coins. Cotechino, differently from Zampone, is ground pork stuffed in the intestine of the pig.
300 g lentils
2 American celery sticks, washed
1 onion, cut in two halves
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
30g butter
4tsp olive oil
½ tsp salt
Black pepper, rosemary, nutmeg
Zampone or Cotechino, package
-
For the Broth: prepare the broth as in the recipe of the tortellini. Use half onion. Take away the vegetables.
-
Pour the lentils in broth, add rosemary and garlic, keep cooking and stir at average temperature for 30 minutes.
-
Fry with butter the other half onion in a pan.
-
Pour the lentils and the broth in a casserole with the fried onion, butter and olive oil.
-
Put in the oven at 160C and keep for 45’/60’. The lentils must absorb the broth but leave some liquid. Control it time by time.
-
Put the Zampone metal bag into a recipient pot, covered by water.
-
Cook it at average temperature according to the instruction on the box (usually 45’)
-
When the lentils are ready take the casserole out; you can add some black pepper and nutmeg, then stir.
-
Take the Zampone bag, bring it to the sink, cut one edge and pour out the liquid (you might use this liquid to enhance the flavour of the lentils as well but check the content of salt on the box).
-
Cut the zampone in thin slices and pour on the bed of lentils on the casserole.
-
Serve warm and with some leaves of rosemary.
Per Serving XXX kcals, protein XXXg, carbs XXXg, fat XXXg, sat fat XXXg, fiber XXXg, sugar XXXg, salt XXXg
3. Strufoli, ”Italian Honey Balls”
Serves 8 Prep 30 min Cook 30 min
EASY
Children love strufoli and families used to cook them and present to their friends when they paid visit to them!
3 cups all purpose flour
4 eggs, beaten
¼ cup butter
½ cup white sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp lemon zest (organic)
1 ½ cups honey
¾ cup pine nuts (or almonds)
2 ¼ punces colored candy sprinkles
Sunflower seeds oil
- Melt the butter or margarine over low heat.
- Mix together in a large bowl 2-1/2 cups of the flour. Add sugar, baking powder, lemon rind and salt. Make a depression in the middle. Drop into it the eggs and the melted butter or margarine. Mix with a wooden spoon and then with the hands until dough leaves the sides of the bowl. Add remaining 1/2 cup of flour as needed. Knead dough on floured surface until it isn’t sticky anymore.
- Break off pieces of dough and roll into ropes about the size of a pencil. Cut into pieces 1/4 inch long. Roll these pieces into little balls and set aside.
- In deep frying pan, heat oil about 2 inches deep. Fry balls until golden brown. Drain on paper towels.
- In a large saucepan over medium heat, bring 1-1/2 cups of pure honey to a boil. Let honey boil gently for about 3 minutes before adding little dough balls, stirring gently with wooden spoon until they are well-coated.
- Remove balls from honey with a slotted spoon and place in a deep dish or mound them on a platter. Sprinkle surface evenly with nuts and multi-coloured sprinkles. Cool.
Per Serving XXX kcals, protein XXXg, carbs XXXg, fat XXXg, sat fat XXXg, fiber XXXg, sugar XXXg, salt XXXg
Fabrizio Righi is an Italian manager who settled down in Singapore and worked for International Organization Caritas Network in Humanitarian Emergency Field in Eastern Europe for many years in the Emergency, Social, Health (including Nutrition), Education, and Development fields. He worked 16 years all over Europe and knows 9 languages and the cuisines of his Continent. His favourite forte is Italian Cuisine, which he learned from his grandmother Maria Stella and which loves to share with his Community, enriched by the sound and deep background of European culinary traditions where he worked abroad and by the Asian spices and herbs from the region where he settled down last. He is also a passionate of ancient recipes from the Ancient Romans and Greeks, and of cultural gastronomy with a lot of information that you will hardly find everywhere else. He participated in the “Singapore Culinary Journey” 2013. You can find Fabrizio with his languages, culture and cuisine posts on https://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/groups/124257721050152/
