WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for The Bear's season 2 finale!Carmy’s family is cooking the Feast of the Seven Fishes during of the Berzatto family tree gather to celebrate Christmas, which fittingly involves plenty of cooking and intense meals, family feuds, and chaos until the moment a car is driven into the house. As the story transports back approximately five years before The Bear’s season 2 timeline, more of the Berzatto family history, character complexities, and background on Carmy’s associations with food and trauma are explored as they prepare to eat the Seven Fishes meal.
The intense hour-long Christmas episode features Carmy’s mother Donna Berzatto (Jamie Lee Curtis in her The Bear season 2 cameo) cooking seven different types of fish, including lobster. The Bear season 2, episode 6’s title meal becomes a source of tension as Donna labors in the kitchen all day and argues with her kids, particularly Carmy and Sugar. Understanding how important the tradition and its perfection is to Donna, Carmy even berates Sugar’s husband Pete for misguidedly bringing a tuna casserole and turning it into “Eight Fishes.” The Seven Fishes practice weighs heavily on The Bear’s Christmas episode, with the context of the biblical meaning and its role in Italian culture better explaining the Berzattos’ stress about the meal.
The Real Feast Of The Seven Fishes Christmas Tradition & Biblical Meaning Explained
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American Christmas tradition that includes a grand meal of seven different types of fish and seafood. According to Food Network, the origins of the Seven Fishes meal come from Southern Italy and the Roman Catholic tradition of not eating dairy or meat on Christmas Eve, where fish was eaten in plentiful amounts instead. However, the specific tradition as portrayed in The Bear is an Italian-American creation, with the number of fish reflecting the number seven as a recurring symbol in the Bible. Therefore, John Mulaney’s character Steven is pretty accurate in guessing the meal's real meaning.
The Chicago Berzatto family’s Italian roots have been incredibly important to The Bear’s story and culinary storylines, as the original restaurant was based on Italian beef and meals. The Bear season 2, episode 6 further drives home the role that Italian tradition plays in the Berzattos’ choice of dishes for their restaurants, with Seven Fishes having been a staple at the family’s annual Christmas celebrations. Some frequent fish dishes in the Feast of the Seven Fishes include lobster, anchovies, baccala, and linguine with clam sauce, a few of which find their way into The Bear’s final menu.
The Bear's Menu Honors Donna & The Berzatto Family Christmas Meal
Carmy and Sydney work on creating a “chaos” menu for The Bear restaurant throughout season 2, with the final list including some staples from Carmy’s family holidays. Seven Fishes, inspired by his mother Donna, is actually a main course on the menu, though it causes tension for Carmy and Sydney when he discovers that the meal has gone cold in the kitchen. Carmy also introduces a cannoli based on the dessert that was served at the Berzatto family’s Christmas dinner, which Marcus names “The Michael” after Carmy’s late brother Mikey.
While Carmy has an extremely complicated relationship with his family, the menu in The Bear’s season 2 ending proves that family and tradition are the cornerstones of his approach to the new restaurant. The Bear as a restaurant is incredibly personal to each chef that works there, suggesting meals inspired by Sydney's mother, Marcus's mother, and others like Chef Terry and Chef Luca will be integrated into the menu in The Bear season 3. Additionally, there will likely be more flashbacks to meals that had significant impacts on the characters' culinary careers and personal backstories.
Source: Food Network