By Diana Cercone
In his forward to his mother Elodia Rigante’s book, Italian Immigrant Cooking, Neil Panico writes: “Real Italian cooking is about more than food—it is a way of celebrating the family and sustaining a whole traditional way of life. For my mother, cooking is a great joy. . . . It is also a way of nourishing the values she inherited from the Old Country, and a way she expresses her love for her family and friends in America, the new world she grew up in.”
Replace “inherited from the Old County” with “inherited from their Italian parents and grandparents,” “family and friends in America” with “family and friends in Bucks County” and “new world” with “Doylestown” and Panico could easily have been writing about Fran (Lochetta) Cardaci and Peter Lochetta. The affable and knowledgeable sister and brother team own Pasqualina’s Italian Market & Deli in Blooming Glen. It was their passion and knowledge about Italian foods, coupled with their desire to share it with their Bucks County neighbors, that led them to buy Pasqualina’s more than a year ago.
But I hadn’t come to talk with them about the market this day. I came about the Italian celebration of the Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve, the Italian dinner of Vigila di Natale. Still, if I needed more proof of their Italian roots on the day we were meeting, the chalkboard in the market’s vestibule announcing the day’s lunch special said it all: “Italian pork sandwich with provolone and broccoli rabe.” Anytime you see that you know you’re in good hands.
With Dino and Frank crooning softly in the background, Fran and Fran’s husband, Mark Cardaci, join me at one of the cafe’s charming tables. It’s early in the morning, before market hours so Pete is busy behind the counter getting everything ready but well within earshot and comment range.
“Both sides of our family, mother’s and father’s, came from Calabria, which is the southern most region of Italy,” say Fran. “We grew up in Doylestown. Our parents still live there and Pete and I live two doors down from each other. Mark’s family came from Sicily.” With some exceptions, many of the dishes she makes for the feast are the same as her husband’s family, she says, though recipes may vary. But it’s all about family and tradition, she says. “Everyone in the family knows to come home [their parents] for Christmas Eve. Doesn’t matter where you go for the other holidays, but Christmas Eve is tradition. It’s the code.”
Promoting local—like family—is the way Fran and Pete roll. “We’re very family-owned oriented here,” says Fran. “And we view our customers like family. Our mission is to bring a little piece of Italy to them and if that means bringing the tradition and recipes to keep that going, then that’s what we’ll do.”
To Fran and Pete, family also extends to their vendors. Though it was a popular stop for locals before, it’s now a go-to must for locals as well as a wider swath of customers that come regularly for their enlarged selection of imported Italian cheeses, olive oils and products along with an array of local goods, especially their homemade prepared foods, many of them from family recipes. For example, Pete makes his own Italian sausages (worth a trip in itself—and negates any run to South Philly’s Italian Market) with Blooming Glen Pork. Other local products include meat from Tussock Sedge Farm in Blooming Glen and Haring Brothers in Doylestown, Sweet Pea Gelato (also in Doylestown), cheeses from Claudio’s and Di Bruno Brothers and homemade pasta from Talluto’s, the latter three from South Philly and Severino Pasta from South Jersey. For their seafood dishes, they turn to Bucks County Seafood Company in Dublin. In addition, they’ve added cooking classes—always a sellout and another way they share their Italian culture, foods and traditions with customers.
And tradition for the Feast of the Seven Fishes dictates the feast is meatless, calling for anywhere from three to 12 fishes to be served, with seven the most popular. The number three refers to the Holy Trinity, seven to the seven sacraments and 12 to the 12 disciples. The exact origin of the custom is still open to debate, but the most popular belief is the all-fish menu is religion based, as Catholics traditionally abstained from feasting the day before a holiday. Not surprising, perhaps, are its roots in Southern Italy, where seafood is plentiful and the mainstay of the villages’ cuisine revolves around the catch of their fishermen. But even, here, the same fish may be prepared differently from region to region, town to town, even among families.
Tradition may dictate that the meal be meatless, but, in typical Italian fashion, this is clearly a feast. No stinting here. The Seven Fishes dinner is a time to celebrate with family and friends the customs and recipes that have been handed down from generation to generation—even adding a few new ones of their own.
Historically, the typical way to prepare many of the fishes, says Fran, was by frying. “But not everyone in the family likes fried foods,” she says, so they bend the tradition a little. Laughing, she says, “Besides we want to live longer—eating healthfully.” So they mix the fried dishes with grilled, sautéed and broiled. They also break the “no cheese with seafood rule. “As long as you have seven fishes on your plate,” she says, “you’re okay.”
As expected, this is not a 60-minute or less meal. Far from it, says Fran. “We start at Thanksgiving. After dinner, we sit around the table and decide on the menu. Then make out the shopping list.” A schedule is also prepared. Some of the dishes, such as baccalà (dried and salted cod) a staple of the Seven Fishes dinner, needs to be started several days in advance, she says. The dried salted cod must be soaked in water for three-to four days, rinsing it under cold water every 12 hours and placed back in fresh water. It’s crucial, she says, to change the water each time to ensure the removal of the salt. (Pasqualina’s sells both dried salted cod and frozen salted cod.)
This year’s Seven Fishes menu will find the Lochetta family enjoying baccalà two ways: in a garlic and oil sauce over fresh pasta and in a tomato sauce with potatoes and olives. Fried smelts and flounder are also traditional musts. Countering the fried dishes are shrimp stuffed with a crabmeat stuffing, stuffed clams oreganata and seasoned grilled scallops. As if that wasn’t enough, they also make sautéed broccoli, zeppole (an Italian doughnut and a specialty of their mother’s), brushetta, mushroom patties, fresh anchovies in oil, assorted olives and Italian bread and rolls.
The morning of Christmas Eve, Fran and her sister Rosanne gather at their parents home. (Their mother makes the dough for the zeppole the evening before so the dough has time to rise.)
“I’ve been helping my mother and grandmother make the dinner since I was five,” she says, gradually moving up the family’s cooking ladder. Today, she says, “I do most of the cooking, with our mother overseeing and cleaning up as we go. Rosanne is the fry master and our father is in charge of the Christmas music—Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Our other brother, Nick, who lives in Jersey, is in charge of bringing red wine. Mark brings the white. And by family tradition, Mark always brings the same: Antinori Vino Bianco which comes in a bottle shaped like a fish.”
Then there are the fresh eels. Killing and cleaning the fresh eels fall to Pete and Mark. “We learned how to do it from Mark’s father, Anthony Cardaci,” says Pete. A traditional Sicilian dish for the feast of the seven fishes, says Mark, the eel is cut into chunks, dredged in flour with salt and pepper and fried.
“We only make it for Mark,” says Fran. “No one else eats it. Even Mark doesn’t like it.”
But some things are sacred. Family traditions are to be honored. So with his parents and grandparents and his Sicilian roots in mind, Mark eats eel every Christmas Eve. And everyone at the Lochetta table celebrates the joy and traditions of the Feast of the Seven Fishes together as a family. It’s the code.
Pasqualina’s Italian Market & Deli is located at 1259 Souderton Road (Rt. 113) in Blooming Glen; 215-453-5941; www.pasqualinas.biz. Note: Some of the Christmas Eve specialty dishes, such as baccalà and eel, can be ordered in advance for pick up. In addition, Fran and Pete will offer a special cooking class on Dec. 9 at 7 p.m. The class, A Modern Twist on the Feast of the Seven Fishes, will combine some traditional foods and some new seafood ideas. “Be prepared to cook and enjoy the food that we make together,” says Fran.
Diana Cercone is an area freelance writer who specializes in food, art and travel.