On the night before Christmas, some people are preparing and decorating Christmas cookies, while others are readying a “roast beast” for the oven. But for Italian-Americans, cooking up the right supper can be a bit fishy. While the precise origins of the tradition are not clear, the Feast of the Seven Fishes, also referred to as La Vigilia, honors Italian-Catholic traditions of eating lean, or magro, in preparation for Christmas holiday feasting. Still, it’s difficult to say that this hours-long meal is anything but indulgent.

Though connected with various Christmas Eve celebrations across Italy, the Feast of the Seven Fishes is decidedly an Italian-American invention that stems from the early 20th century. During these peak years of Italian immigration into the United States, most people came from Southern Italy, where seafood is an important part of the diet. Many Italian-Americans wouldn’t recognize the feast without dishes such as baccalà (fried salted codfish) with a spicy caper-flecked sauce and grilled or fried eel (capitone).