Il Pranzo di S.Stefano

The day after Christmas is the Feast Day of Saint Stephen.  Little known in the USA, it's widely celebrated in the rest of the world.  In Italy it's a public holiday, and the eating continues for the third day.

Prosecco

Today's lunch was a small crowd, only 13 people attended. We started off with some more finger sandwiches:  gorgonzola and walnuts, and some sort of caviar.

The table being prepared for lunch.

Then we moved on to today's big novelty: a mozzarella that weighs a whopping 5 kilograms!

The 5 kilogram mozzarella.

There it is, in the center of the table, next to the finger sandwiches.  To give you some sense of scale, here's another picture with a normal sized person in the scene:

5 kilogram mozzarella next to normal size person.

About this time I switched from the Prosecco to a Falanghina:

Falanghina

Now we're past the appetizers.  First plate is the Lasagna.

Lasagna

Modest serving of Lasagna.

 For second plate we had turkey.  The contorni were broccoletti and mashed potato balls.  These are potatoes, mashed, made into little balls, and lightly fried or perhaps baked.

An additional second plate for anyone who wasn't stuffed yet.  This is meat in a roll (rotolo) around spinach, eggs, carrots, cheese.

Now we move on to the fruits and dessert.  Starting with the melon. No, it's not canteloupe.  No, it's not mush melon. I don't know what this would be called in the USA.  The outside was green.  Here they just called it the Christmas Melon, maybe because it happens to be a crop that ripens in the winter, I just do not know.

And pineapple.

And walnuts and hard chocolate cookies and an assortment of traditional holiday cookies.

And finally the struffoli!

Struffoli. Deep fried dough balls in honey and candied sugar balls.

So that was our small lunch.  I did miss a few things.  For example the "Insalata di rinforzo" from yesterday made another appearance and there was also a delightful home made wine, very wet not dry at all.  So we close by wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Christmas Day Pranzo

Today's main meal was much lighter than yesterday's.  Sorry I failed to take any pictures at all.

Lunch started with the minestra, which in this case was escarole served in a light broth.  The second plate was meats, e.g. some sausages and beef, cooked in the same broth.

The sides or contorni were puree of potatoes and a local dish called panzerotti: these are little logs of mashed potatoes filled with cheeses and salt cured meats, then dipped in bread crumbs and deep fried.

After this we had three types of salami, couple kinds of cheeses, some good melon of a type I don't see in the US, and a strange salad called "l'insalada di rinforzo". This is a bed of cauliflower covered with olives, hot and sweet peppers, and eveykind of garnish you could imagine.

Also struffoli, Christmas cookies, and I cannot remember what else.

Most guests were still too full from last night's meal and didn't manage to eat much today. And on Monday it's still a holiday, the feast of St. Stephen, so we have to do it all over again!

La Cena della Vigilia di Natala

The Christmas Eve dinner in Italy is typically based on fish, often having many different types of seafood in one meal.  This is a small light meal we had tonight. 

  

Smoked salmon and tuna finger sandwiches.

The table being prepared.

Octopus salad.

Risotto with calamari, shrimp, and mussels.

Olga and the fish. The gilt-head (sea) bream Sparus aurata.

Orata and potatoes

Fried calamari and fried baccala (salt cured cod).

I was going strong.  Had two servings of risotto.  Was going strong into the fish.  Ran into a brick wall when the calamari and baccalà arrived.

For washing down all this, we had cold water, and started out with a fresh white wine, a Falanghina, before passing quickly to a local red wine, Gragnano.