Italian Curiosities: Naples obsession with eel at Christmas

Dec 21, 2020 1137

Christmas traditions in Italy are varied and each  region has a bunch of its own. In Naples, one of the most popular involves eel, orcapitone as it’s commonly known in the city of  Parthenope. On Christmas Eve,capitoneis compulsory on every Neapolitan table, usually deep fried and served with a glass of good wine. But the question is: why?

To answer, let’s take a step back and  explain what capitone is. In Italian, there are two different nouns we translate with eel in English: capitone and  anguilla. Both are, in fact, the same fish, but while anguilla refers to the male, which is smaller, capitone refers to the much longer and  larger female.

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SOURCE: https://italoamericano.org/

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