{"id":12222,"date":"2016-11-23T15:21:19","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T20:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=12222"},"modified":"2020-04-30T10:50:13","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T14:50:13","slug":"lucky-sevens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/lucky-sevens\/","title":{"rendered":"Lucky Sevens:"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"colin-sargent-final-xs\"<\/p>\n

Few places are more Italian at Christmas than Portland, Maine. Our city is famous for its genius to celebrate The Feast of the Seven Fishes<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

For Tony Napolitano of Maria\u2019s Ristorante,<\/strong> memories run deep. \u201cWhen we were kids, we\u2019d go to Vigil Mass on Christmas Eve at Saint Peter\u2019s Cathedral. Then we\u2019d rush back to observe the Feast of the Seven Fishes. My father always made a big, beautiful bowl of Baccal\u00e0<\/em>\u2013salt cod with tomatoes and capers\u2013to start things off.\u201d Volcanically delicious, Baccal\u00e0 alla Vesuviana<\/em> is cooked in extra-virgin olive oil, diced onions, red pepper flakes, parsley, and fresh mint.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sense of Italian tradition derives from Catholic roots. \u201cWe abstain from meat on Christmas Eve,\u201d Napolitano says. At Maria\u2019s on that special night, look for \u201cZuppa de Pesce<\/em>. We cook seven different fishes in a Fra Diavolo<\/em> sauce.\u201d Cooked in white wine, the recipe calls for celery, garlic, tomato sauce, marjoram leaves, and extra-virgin olive oil. Fish vary. One Amalfi zuppa de pesce<\/em> includes crayfish, mullet, razor clams, and mussels.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe also have fried fish and fried eel that night,\u201d Napolitano says. \u201cWe do a Misto<\/em>.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

According to Robert Schira, writing for finedininglovers.com, \u201cBy the seaside, fritto misto all\u2019italian<\/em>a is a plateful of fried golden calamari rings, shrimp, and squid tentacles, but in northern Italy\u2013particularly in Piedmont\u2013it is mostly vegetables and, depending on the season, enhanced with semolina, veal brain, brochettes of cheese and prosciutto, sweet cream and amaretti.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

At Maria\u2019s, the Neapolitan-style fritto misto<\/em> is fun and fabulous. As Shira writes of the misto, \u201cNever expect the same twice…and it\u2019s best eaten hot!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Colin<\/p>\n

\n

Click here to\u00a0view past\u00a0Letters from the Editor.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

December 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12284,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[114],"class_list":["post-12222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor","tag-december-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12222"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18478,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12222\/revisions\/18478"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}