Which holiday? For me, THE holiday… of course, is Christmas. And if you asked me what my favorite meal at Christmastime was, until about ten years ago, I would’ve said Sausage, Peppers and Onions with my big sister’s Italian Rice casserole. However, a very recent favorite Christmas meal take-over since I began learning to cook in earnest is now Beef Wellington.
For some reason this has become a Christmas tradition with my immediate family, and we now have it every year. But going back to my childhood Christmas celebrations, my favorite meal was always sausage and peppers…a long-standing tradition at Christmas on the Italian side of the family. In fact, most all our holiday traditions came from the Italian celebrations ever since I can remember. We would all gather for Christmas at my Nana & Nanu’s house in Cleveland. And by all, I mean ALL our extended family, which included the families of my mother’s three siblings. Aunts, uncles, cousins, and in-laws. Occasionally, from the Puerto Rican side of the family, my father’s brother Uncle Louis and his wife Aunt Jean (Italian side) would be there with Uncle Louis’s specialty—Spanish rice (to die for).
Every year, my Nana’s basement was decked out with Christmas decorations, and tables of delicious food like sausage, peppers and caramelized onions, pasta and meatballs, lots of homemade bread (for sausage sandwiches), salads, shrimp, charcuterie trays of salami, prosciutto, olives, and lots of cheeses, and pizza—both with and without (white) sauce. And of course, a large spread of traditional Italian Christmas cookies. My mother and sisters would bake cookies such as “Do-Do’s” (dough-DOUGHS), which are small balls of chocolaty, nutty goodness frosted with a smooth lemony icing. Sesame seed cookies known as “Giuggiulena” (joo-joo-LENA) which feature a combination of anise and toasted sesame seeds, “Pizzelle” (pit-ZELL-eh), thin, wafer-like, and crispy, traditionally flavored with anise and, my favorite, “Pignoli” (peen-YO-lee), made with almond paste and covered with pine nuts. Other Italian styles of cookies occasionally made an appearance in various years, such as rainbow cookies, wedding cookies (snowballs), chocolate sandwich cookies and something called “Dead Man’s Bones”…which it seems is traditionally known as “Dead Man’s Beans”.
And of course…we didn’t eat any of the main dishes like pasta and sausages and peppers without first welcoming a visit from Santa Claus! Maybe just nibbling on the charcuterie meats & cheeses while we waited for Santa.
Our Italian family Christmas celebrations were colorful, very loud…and really delicious!