Christmas lunch is a real ritual, very often the traditions of a family are repeated year after year according to the specialties of the territory handed down and they rarely deviate. It is perhaps the only occasion in which the menu is more or less the same as when the person who cooks and puts on the table was a child. A cuisine of memories as well as of tradition, a comfort food to be prepared calmly, in the days before, dedicating a time that is itself a gift and love. Each region has its own typical dishes and each family its own, but the main ones are not up for debate, even if the spread of vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free diets has multiplied the dishes to be prepared. First courses and desserts are the traditional essentials, on appetizers a little more freedom is allowed as well as on second courses which, however, traditionally on Christmas Day include meat (beef, veal, pork, chicken as long as they are elaborate and rich), after the abstention on Christmas Eve in which only fish is eaten. Not everything is always done at home, even if it happens in many families and very often we order outside but always strictly following traditional foods.
Whatdo you put on the table on December 25th?
Almost everywhere there is broth: in Genoa the natalini (they resemble ziti, 20 cm long and with a slightly oval shape) are cooked in capon broth in which sausage balls are put considered beneficial because they symbolize coins. Alternatively, pansoti (ravioli stuffed with wild herbs) with walnutsauce and for the main course cappon magro with salsify and green sauce. In Bologna, in the capon broth on Christmas Day, we end up with cappelletti followed by the great boiled meat (beef, veal, chicken, zampone or cotechino) in green sauce and friggione, which is the typical side dish of onions macerated in sugar and then stewed in tomato). In Turin, the capon is stuffed and in addition to the cappelletti in broth, agnolotti is usedwith meatfilling, which tradition has it is served with roast sauce, butter, sage and Parmesan cheese. Capon is also the master of the Christmas lunch menu in Milan with redmeat birds in broth and for second course roasted, boiled, stuffed with chestnuts or truffle slices, and accompanied by mustard, preferably pear and pumpkin. In Venice we start with the panettone di tramezzini (a tasty specialty now fashionable throughout Italy) and continue with bigoli (spaghetti) with duck sauce or risotto alla trevigiana, in Trieste gnocchi al Montasio, a typical cheese of Friuli. In Florence, tortellini in broth is prepared according to tradition with stuffed neck or chicken in jelly, a rather laborious recipe, often preceded by liver croutons as an appetizer, chicken livers on croutons also in Perugia where the first course is dry with agnolotti with sauce or pappardelle with wild boar or spaghetti alla nursina (with oil, anchovies, parsley and truffle flakes). In Naples, the most traditional Christmas lunch is the minestra maritata, where maritata indicates a variety of elements with seasonal vegetables including cabbage, small escarole and borage, boiled and then transferred to meat broth And according to the house there are also those who add a few pieces of chicken meat and sausage, but there is also the second first course or baked pasta stuffed with mozzarella, meat sauce, peas, eggs and tomato sauce. In Molise macaroni with cauliflower but also polenta with tripe and offal, strascinati with meat sauce in Basilicata, In Bari at Christmas you eat broth made with white meat, chicken or turkey. In Sardinia,ravioli with ricotta or goat cheese and suckling pig for a main course, while in Palermo you can't miss the ncaciata pasta, a baked pasta made with meat sauce, eggs, eggplant and lots of cheese.
And in Rome? We asked Giancarlo Praiola, owner of the restaurant Il Bocconcino, an address in the shadow of the Colosseum, who has based his cuisine on the accurate and high-quality recovery of the recipes of the true Roman tradition (even in an area, the Celio, with a very high tourist density). "For Christmas lunch, my memories, confirmed by the readings of historical cookbooks such as those of Livio Jannattoni, report as inevitable after a few appetizers of cured meats and some fried food, the Roman stracciatella which I believe also had a propitiatory and auspicious function (according to my grandfather at least). This was followed by cappelletti alla romana cooked in capon broth, which was served as a main course accompanied by coarse salt and green sauce. So apart from various side dishes, fried, sometimes lamb cutlets especially for children if present, I would say that the sacred Trimurti, stracciatella, cappelletti in broth and boiled capon is a constant in memories and literature. The Christmas Eve dinner is a separate matter because it is preceded by an all-Roman event that is not in my memories but that I discovered in my research, namely the "Cottio" probably from the Latin quot , quotation. It was about buying fish in bulk at the General Markets and other markets. In itself, it was a festive and noisy event attended by rich lords, commoners and bourgeoisie, crowding on the 23rd and 24th among the stalls to buy fish for the Friday dinner that followed a day of actual fasting and abstinence. It was also customary to start with an appetizer, often fried, and thena soup, the most famous of which was arzilla and broccoli, of course, or mullet broth. A curious note was the widespread use of cooking eels at Christmas, in Rome the so-called "ciriole", i.e. small eels caught in the Tiber. It should therefore be noted that Roman cuisine made use of fish that had now disappeared from everyday use, such as the dogfish or even more the mullet, which was even caught in the Tiber and which was considered the fish of the holidays by the populace".
How to make Roman stracciatella? The dish is very simple. Beat the eggs with a fork and add the grated Parmesan cheese (50 grams for 4 eggs) and then nutmeg, lemon zest, salt and lots of pepper, as if you were preparing a sauce. Then throw this cream into the boiling meat broth (preferably with the capon) and stir for a couple of minutes with a whisk. Et voilà.
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