If you think about Christmas Eve in Spain, you probably see the same scene: endless platters of prawns, crayfish, cooked prawns and the occasional scallop “to treat”. He seafood at Christmas It seems as inevitable as Christmas carols on repeat or the usual political discussions. But what is curious is that this custom is not as old as we think, nor was it born out of a pure whim of “let’s get fancy”. Its origin has much more to do with the Church, the railroad and freezers than with social media or avant-garde chefs.
For centuries, gorging on shellfish would have sounded like science fiction in most homes. And yet, today we almost understand that if good seafood is not on the menu, it is because something is missing. To understand how we got here, we need to start at the beginning: a Christmas Eve which, for a long time, was more about containment than excess.
From the Christmas Eve of fasting vigil to luxury banquets
The image of Christmas abundance we have today has little in common with the standards the Church has set for centuries. December 24 has long been a day of fasting vigil: Only one “serious” meal and two light snacks were allowed, and also without meat. That is to say, it was time to tighten our belts before celebrating the birth of Christ.
This resulted in tables very different from those of today: dishes of vegetables, nuts, fish, simple soups like almond soup, seasonal salads and nothing else. No suckling pigs, no fillets and above all no trays of seafood at Christmas like those we take for granted today. In modest homes, the “banquet” was almost a symbolic price; In wealthy homes, a certain appearance was desired, but always under the restriction of not eating meat.
The main thing is that, as it is the day of fasting vigilthe fish became the protagonist. In the interior of the Peninsula, cod or dried conger eel was used; in coastal areas, fresh fish available. Seafood, very perishable and expensive to transport, was almost exclusively reserved for estuaries and port towns, where it was part of major celebrations… but as an absolute luxury.
After midnight mass came the “resopon”: sweets, nuts, something stronger if there was a possibility. The real big celebration was reserved for the 25th, when the turkeys, capons, lambs and the eternal stews fell. Christmas was important, of course, but the table was always marked by religious austerity and the economy of each house. The jump to the shellfish orgy we know today would come much later.
From the baked sea bream to the boom of seafood at Christmas
The next turning point is marked by modern transport. With the arrival of the railway in the 19th century, sea fish began to arrive in better conditions inland. In Madrid, for example, the baked sea bream It became the star dish of Christmas dinner: it was fish, it respected the spirit of the old vigil and, at the same time, allowed it to show off. Chronicles from the beginning of the 20th century speak of tens of thousands of bream entering the capital between December 23 and 25. It was the luxury of the time.
That baked sea bream It was, in a way, the bridge between religious tradition and bourgeois celebration: it was still a “wake-up fish”, but it already functioned as a status symbol. Having it on the table meant that in this house we could afford a good coastal product. Seafood was in yet another league: very expensive, very fragile, and very difficult to move without it arriving in bad condition.
The big change – and never better said – came in the 60s of the 20th century. Economic improvement, the development of the cold chain, the popularization of frozen foods and, suddenly, shrimp, prawns or crayfish that were previously seen only by an elite began to appear, little by little, in fish stores in half the country. The sea, thanks to refrigerated trucks and freezing rooms, was finally making its solid entry onto the table of the middle classes.
And there is born the imagination of the great seafood of Christmas: the shrimp cocktail in a glass, the endless platters of shrimp, the spider crabs “for special occasions”. He seafood at Christmas It stood out as a perfect symbol of everything that the festival promised: abundance, celebration and no ostentation. If for centuries luxury had been that baked sea bream Coming from the Cantabrian Sea, the new Spain of the 70s and 80s found its icon in the platters overflowing with shellfish.
What does it matter Christmas tradition about who we are
If you look more closely, the Spanish Christmas table is almost an accelerated summary of our recent history. From a Christmas Eve marked by the fasting vigilconfinement and religion, we move on to a party where the main thing is to get together, eat a lot and demonstrate, almost without saying it, that we have “reached” a certain level of well-being. Seafood fits like a glove into this story: it remains a relatively expensive product, it associates the menu with an idea of accessible luxury and maintains a link with this “fish plate” heritage which has marked December 24 for centuries.
Today this Christmas tradition It coexists with many others: lamb or suckling pig in Castile and León, cauliflower with cod in Galicia, escudella and pebble soup in Catalonia, stuffed capons, regional sweets. But even in more earthbound menus it is usual that before the main course a platter of shrimp, crabs or grilled crayfish appears, even if it is a modest version. The underlying idea remains the same: for one night, don’t miss anything.
Plus, seafood works almost like a generational album. Older people remember the time when it was an extraordinary luxury; Those who grew up in the 80s and 90s associate it with dinners at their grandparents’ house; The younger generations see it almost as an obligatory ritual, even if they hardly try it the rest of the year. THE Christmas tradition It is based precisely on this: repetitions, inherited gestures, jokes that come back every year (“let’s see who peels the most shrimp”) and dishes that we might not choose on a Tuesday, but which on these dates seem essential to us.
Paradoxically, while we talk more and more about sustainability, animal welfare or moderation in consumption, we keep intact the scene of the full set entering the room to applause. Maybe that’s also part of the charm: in this little annual break in which we allow ourselves to eat as if time had not passed, even if we know it.
The next time you’re faced with a mountain of shrimp, you can say it calmly at the table: what you have in front of you is not just a dish, it is the result of centuries of religious norms, technical advances and social changes. And yes, it’s possible that your grandmother never talked about it fasting vigil or the story of baked sea breambut every time someone places seafood in the center of the table, they unknowingly repeat a story much longer than the tablecloth itself.
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