Food is very different throughout the Peninsula, starting with when you eat: in the Center and in the South of Italy, in fact, Italians celebrate with the “Cenone della Vigilia”, while in the North, lunch on the 25th of December is a must.
And there are also precise rules regarding what to eat: on the 24th evening, it is advisable to prepare a “lean” dinner, usually based on fish, while at Christmas you can cook almost everything you can think of (and believe us, Italians tables at Christmas are unbelievably full of food!).
Our traditional Christmas dishes
Let’s start with Valle D’Aosta. In this region, one of the specialities eaten for Christmas is mocetta in honey croutons (cured meat of cow, sheep or goat muscle dried and flavoured with mountain herbs, juniper and garlic), lard with cooked chestnuts and caramelized with honey, croutons with fondue and truffle, Valpellinentze soup (cabbage, savoy cabbage, slices of stale bread, fontina, broth, cinnamon and nutmeg, sausage with potatoes and Valdostana Carbonata with polenta (thin strips of meat macerated in red wine with aromas). As a dessert, pears in syrup served with chocolate cream and whipped cream (pears cooked with sugar, vanilla, cloves, water, and red wine, reduced to a syrup and very robust Mandolá coffee with chopped almonds and dry pastry tiles.
Christmas in Trentino Alto Adige has the rich and tasty flavour of canederli, with butter or broth, of game meat sweetened with red fruit compotes and delicious baked desserts with dried fruit and jam. Dumplings, roe deer, or kid in the oven and to close the strudel (recipe here) or zelten, made with dried fruit and candied fruit are other Christmas food you can find in this region in this period of the year.
In Piedmont, it is not Christmas without agnolotti and mixed boiled meat, seasoned with sauces including bagnet ross and verd.
Ravioli, green or meat-based, and cappon magro, a dish of vegetables and fish, dominate the Ligurian tables: and if in Lombardy, surprisingly, one of the most traditional dishes is eel cooked in foil, in Veneto polenta is eaten with cod and boiled meat with sauces.
In Friuli, you go for brovada and muset, a soup of turnips and cotechino, with polenta, and then tripe with sauce and cheese and capon.
Center of Italy
Tortellini and passatelli, strictly in broth, tagliatelle and lasagna, but also pumpkin and herb tortelli, and ham and culatello: it is Emilia Romagna, home of good cuisine, especially based on meat. Although there are exceptions: like Modena, where you eat fish, especially preserved. There you can enjoy spaghetti with tuna, mackerel, anchovies and tomato, but also stewed or fried cod.
And cod is also the protagonist in the tables of the eve of Lazio. Moving to the central part of our peninsula we begin to linger in the capital, where on Christmas Eve the mixed fried vegetables, capitone and codfish abound on the tables. Pasta and broccoli in arzilla broth and puntarelle salad are among the first courses, while for lunch on the 25th, baked pasta alternates, whether they are lasagna or cannelloni, and cappelletti in broth, followed by baked lamb with potatoes, but also boiled meat or turkey. And finally: nougat and pampepato, or pangiallo, with a round shape and a yellow crust, with a filling of dried fruit, honey and candied fruit.
Molise cooking is a straightforward cuisine, simple dishes, and few frills: Christmas cuisine in Molise aims at quality. Appetizers of cured meats, fritto misto, and ricotta calzoni, the typical Christmas dishes in this region are based on both meat and fish. For the first courses the most disparate flavours triumph: from mullet soup to pancotto with seasonal vegetables, from maccheroni to cauliflower to spaghetti with cuttlefish, Molise table is rich and varied. Tripe and offal with polenta for main courses or pork, a constant of the Italian Christmas table, the Christmas menu end with cicerchiata – a kind of smaller and crispier struffoli – the Milk bread, deadly and sweet fortified bread and mostaccioli.
Tuscans enjoy crostini with livers, but also roast guinea fowl or duck and liver or stuffed capon. The bardiccio, a pork sausage spiced with fennel, is also cooked. Maccheroncini di Campofilone are traditional in the Marches, but also cappelletti in broth, as well as in Umbria where they are sometimes filled with capon and pigeon.
In Abruzzo it is traditional to eat at Christmas: cardoon soup, chestnut and chickpea soup, lasagna with minced meat, mozzarella, and Parmesan; and then again roast lamb and boiled beef. The traditional desserts are: fried calcionetti (sweet panzerottini with black grape jam called scrucchiata, chickpeas, chopped walnuts, crushed almonds, must and cocoa), ferratelle, wafers filled with almonds, walnuts, and honey, neole, landed walnuts (almonds with water and sugar) and scrippelle.
Maccheroncini di Campofilone in sauce, cappelletti in meat broth, Vincisgrassi (ground beef timbale, sausage, minced chicken, ham, sometimes with mushrooms too) and roast capon are the specialities you can find in the Marche region at Christmas, but not only. For desserts, pizza de Natá (bread dough with dried fruit, raisins, powdered chocolate, grated lemon and orange, figs and sugar) and fristingo (a mixture of figs, chocolate, candied fruit, and dried fruit).
Southern traditions
Capon broth, spaghetti with clams, friselle, stuffed capon with “insalata di rinforzo” and then struffoli, roccoccò and dried fruit: it is Campania, which looks great for the Christmas holidays. For Christmas Eve, many eat capitone, the female eel. The reason is soon explained: being very similar to a snake, the capitone would symbolize the victory of men over Satan, who took the shape of this animal to tempt Eve.
Fish, meat and vegetables are not lacking even in Basilicata, Calabria and Puglia.
In Basilicata, usually, escarole soup is a must, then cabbage and thistles in turkey broth, and then boiled cod and bread with almonds. As a dessert they prepare scarpedde, fried sheets of pasta seasoned with honey.
Calabria: Fish, meat and vegetables are not lacking in Calabria. During Christmas Eve’s dinner, among the most prepared dishes are grespelle, pizzas of leavened dough stuffed with vegetables or fish, spaghetti with anchovies and breadcrumbs, while among the main courses we remember the stockfish with potatoes. For Christmas lunch, the “scillatelle con ragù”, a type of homemade pasta, worked with an special tool made of iron to give their classic shape, and the kid in the oven arrive at the table. The “nacatole” are the classic biscuits of this period, flavored with anise, followed closely by chocolate-covered figs, nougat, cedar and bergamot sweets.
On the other side of the boot, in Puglia, turnip tops and pettole (or pittule) are made, which are leavened dough stuffed with tomatoes, capers, oregano, and anchovies, but also peeled shrimp, turnip greens, and ricotta. We also eat roasted eel and fried cod and then baked lamb with lampascioni, which are slightly bitter onions. Finally, the desserts: turdilli or cannaricoli and “pitta ‘mpigliata”.
In Sardinia, among the starters, we can find sausage, pecorino and olives “a schibeci”. Culurgiones de casu (ravioli stuffed with fresh pecorino, chard, nutmeg, and saffron) dressed with tomato sauce and grated pecorino, Sardinian gnocchi with sausage sauce, lamb with baked potatoes, porcetto with myrtle. Among the side dishes, seasonal vegetables such as celery, fennel and radishes. Among the desserts, ricotta with honey, honey seadas (fried cheese cakes).
Orange salad, herring and onion, thistles in batter, chicken in broth, pasta with sardines and beccafico instead are the typical Sicilian dishes at Christmas. Sfincione is also made, a typical onion-based pizza, which goes well with thistles in batter and chicken in broth. Many desserts choices here: from buccellati to cassata and cannoli you’ll definitely find something to please your tastebuds!
