December 19th, 2016 — When you ask a handful of Maine-based sustainable seafood experts what they would serve for a Christmas Eve Feast of the Fishes celebration, they say locals are not wanting for choice. In fact, you’d better be prepared to bypass the southern Italian menu of just seven fishes and opt for the Polish custom of serving as many as 12 courses, one for each apostle.
Regardless of whether you take holiday cues from Naples or Krakow, the fish-centric feast as practiced in both places takes place after sundown but before midnight. The meal centers on fish because, for Roman Catholics in generations past, Christmas Eve was a holy day of obligation: Rome dictated the day must include Mass but not meat.
Sustainable seafood-centric celebrations, regardless of how many dishes of fishes you serve, are no problem here in Maine. It’s more a matter of knowing which ones to buy at this time of year and why.
It’s no surprise that Togue Brawn, owner of DownEast Dayboat in Hancock, recommends scallops. She works with five Maine fishermen who harvest scallops within 3 miles of the Maine coast, and she sells them to customers within 24 hours of the mollusks being hauled out of the water during the state’s short winter scallop season.