Feast of the Seven Fishes

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December 16, 2025

The Christmas Eve tradition in my family stems from the canon law of meatless meals on Fridays and on the eve of high holidays.

Over the years in the U.S., for Italian-Americans, this custom developed into a celebration called the Feast of the Seven Fishes.

My mother lives with me. She is 90 years old, of Italian descent, strong-willed, and excellent company. We “eat local”. In the Mediterranean, local includes copious quantities of fish. Out here on a farm in the Shenandoah Valley, local foods tend to be predominantly land dwellers.

Nonetheless, we rise to the challenge, and celebrate we shall. Here are the fishes we’ve decided to use, and their non-local (but sustainable) sources:

First Course -

Endive leaf topped with a slice of hard-boiled egg and a single anchovy, dressed with olive oil and vinegar.
(Anchovies from Vital Choice Seafoods)

Second Course -

Pickled herring on a slice of potato, topped with sour cream and onion (Herring from VitaFoods)

Third Course -

Oyster stew made with butter and fresh cream (Oysters from Circle C Oyster Ranch -Chesapeake Bay)

Fourth Course -

Sautéed shrimp with garlic butter and lemon (Shrimp from Vital Choice Seafood)

Fifth Course -

Poached salmon on a bed of kale, dressed with a chutney of ground pecans, chopped olives, minced dried fruits (dates, pineapple, figs), dressed with balsamic vinegar (Salmon from Wild Salmon Co.)

Sixth Course -

Fish and sauce (black cod with a thin tomato sauce, onion, garlic, basil, and oregano) (Black Cod from Wild Salmon Co.)

Seventh Course -

Sautéed scallops with garlic, liquid aminos, coconut oil, butter, and rhubarb sauce. (Scallops from Vital Choice Seafood)

Side dishes will be breaded eggplant, sweet potato gnocchi, and a homemade panettone for dessert round out the meal.

While shopping for ingredients for our menu, I enjoy seeing the diversity of vendors at my local farmers' market.

A family from Ukraine sells piroshki. A Venezuelan vendor offers arepas. These are just two examples of the variety of ethnic foods available there.

Sampling these new-to-me foods enriches my experience of the holidays. It reminds me that there are many ways to celebrate this glorious season.

My siblings and I grew up among many, many cousins. Our celebrations were HUGE, full of family activity, filled with devastatingly irresistible aromas wafting from the kitchen, included a prominent display of the Christmas Nativity and a pine tree (emitting a fragrance of its own) trimmed with decorations that I have to this very day, all wrapped up with love that spanned three generations.

Now it’s just Mom and me and a couple of close friends, gathering to bring meaning to our favorite of holidays. It is a calmer, quieter time of sharing these memories at the dining room table, and talking over old times on the phone with loved ones far away.

On Christmas day we return to the land with beef bresaola (traditionally made with lean cuts like eye of round to break the fast.

I wish you a blessed holiday, whatever your tradition

Susan

Short of Turkeys and Beef

For the first time in many years, we’ll be short of turkeys for Thanksgiving. Consistent with our policy of full transparency, here is why. And we’ve been short of beef now for some time. The underlying theme of this explanation is to inform you completely about why and what we’re doing about it. Unlike many businesses, we don’t call up other outfits to supplement ours when we’re short. We figure out how to produce more and until then, simply run behind. Because of that, when we explore new markets, we can’t adjust our inventory instantaneously.We’ve had a couple of incredibly exciting market developments this year. We’ve always tried to experiment with new opportunities when markets request product. You never know which ones will be long term, short term, positive, or negative. Over the years, we’ve given away turkeys when we overproduced due to assuming a certain market opportunity would come through; that’s not financially viable. As a result, we’re pretty careful about expansion. Three years ago, a large corporation in Virginia asked us to supply turkeys and Christmas hams to their 300 employees. We had no idea they would hang with us this long, but here they are, happy and showing unbelievable loyalty. We’ve been reluctant to count on them simply because these kinds of things normally don’t last. But isn’t it exciting and even exhilarating that a big company is buying our kind of turkeys and hams for their employees? The other thing that developed—and these things develop slowly—was Azure Standard asked us to supply them with 1,000 turkeys as a trial to see if their customer base would like them. By the time that deal was formalized, we were too late to order more turkeys and did not have the full number for them, but we we did the best we could. Some of you who are Azure Standard customers will no doubt see our turkeys pop up on their sales platform. When an engine going somewhere wants to hook to us, we always try to at least collaborate in an experiment. That’s where we are; if all are happy, this could be an extremely positive strategic client for us in the future. In the same way, we’ve been contacted by a new internet marketing outfit wanting some of our beef. We’ve agreed to let them have five in 2027. We’re hoping ongoing discussions will lead them to carry our poultry and pork as well—right now they’re only beef. None of this is about building an empire. It is about collaborating with the cutting edge of authentic food and circumventing Big Food, Big Ag, and Big Pharma. Innovation comes in many ways. Polyface perhaps leads the world in the production element. But processing, marketing, and distribution are also undergoing innovation and staying relevant is a daily objective. That some of the most creative significant players in the integrity food movement are asking us to play with them is wonderful. They could just handle industrial organic meat poultry, which doesn’t see pasture and doesn’t enjoy the happiness context of Polyface livestock. But they’re talking to us, and that’s awesome. All innovation carries a ragged edge as it develops, refines, and hopefully becomes efficient over time. Thank you for indulging us the freedom to explore these new venues and to collaborate with some of the best players in the good food movement. As you can imagine, growing and experimenting create their own sore muscles. Being short is not fun for either of us, but be assured it’s not because our animals are sick or we’re getting tired of being farmers. You can laugh at that. It’s because, true to our history, we are committed to putting food worth eating on plates held by friends. We count you as friends; that’s why we’re taking you on this little explanation behind the curtain. Hang in there and thank you, thank you for your loyalty and patronage.

Feast of the Seven Fishes

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