Seafood and The Festive Season: a Match Made in Heaven

The windows are frosted with snowflakes, the mantelpiece is laden with decorations, and the living room echoes with chatter – there’s nothing better than the festive season. But the chatter stops when the timer rings in the kitchen and the cook suddenly calls out, ‘The fish is ready!’

Families and friends across the world will sit down together in the coming months and many will tuck into their favourite seafood dish, whatever that may be. And the range of delicious choices on offer is no coincidence.

Seafood companies provide consumers and restaurants with an array of fresh produce and as a result, whether it’s Christmas in Copenhagen or New Year’s Eve in New York, seafood is the way to go this festive season.

Starting with Christmas in Copenhagen, everyone knows that the Scandinavians adore their fish. Cured and pickled herring is the dish of choice for the Danes, who combine it with onions and dill and sometimes even a sprinkle of nutmeg for good measure. The herring is then served on a rye bread open sandwich called a Smørrebrød.

In the battle for seafood supremacy, Norway, Sweden, and Finland have their own champion: lutefisk. This is the subtle dish of dried cod, traditionally paired with a hearty serving of boiled potatoes, mashed green beans, bacon, and melted butter.

Regional variations of lutefisk abound, especially in Sweden, where Swedes in the Scania region sprinkle it with allspice and a touch of black pepper, while the jämtlending (those from Jämtland), switch the potatoes for flatbread and the spices for melted whey cheese.

While the Scandinavian seafaring tradition yields delicious results, American families are known to take their seafood festivities one step further. Inspired by the arrival of Italian immigrants to the US in the late nineteenth-century, the ‘Feast of the Seven Fishes’ is a veritable festival of food.

Neighbours and friends are invited over on Christmas Eve, but instead of having one fish as the star of the show, this dinner incorporates seven. Imagine a table heaving with deep fried cod and plaice, haddock in tomato sauce, salted fish with pasta, garlic squid, poached halibut, and sardines with a parsley and caper sauce.

This is a menu fit for a queen and her king, and as luck would have it, companies like Norebo, the Russian fishing giant, sell every species listed in the mouth-watering menu above.

Yet while Norebo’s range allows for such a seafood tour de force, the high quality of each of its products means that one fish can be the star of the show. Take a cod-based fish pie in the UK, a staple of the Christmas period. After a long walk in the crisp December air, there’s nothing better than arriving at a cosy pub or restaurant, the fire crackling, and ordering a steaming fish pie. The flaky cod, the fluffy mashed potato and the cheesy layer on top really takes some beating.

This creamy goodness is the best of British, but the versatility of cod has placed it at the heart of festive traditions far beyond the shores of the UK. Bacalao, or salted cod, is one such variation and it is immensely popular across Europe, particularly in Portugal and Spain.

If the weather is getting unbearably cold, go to your local Spanish restaurant and order ‘bacalao con tomate’, a deliciously punchy dish. The well-seasoned cod is accompanied by a sweet roasted red pepper and tomato sauce, with a side serving of crunchy fried potatoes. A simple but timeless classic.

In sum, whether it is bacalao, pickled herring, or fish pie, cooked at home or served up at a restaurant, high quality seafood never disappoints. Consumers benefit from the variety of products on offer and from the various takes that different countries and communities have on the same product. As a result, wherever you are in the world, seafood will be an integral part of the festive tradition.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the management of EconoTimes