MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — An event that’s been held in Fairmont for going over a decade is expected to again bring thousands to the town.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is going on it’s twelfth year now in Fairmont and is considered a holiday homecoming. The all day festival includes food and wine, along with local artisans selling products in the middle of town.
“So Saturday we will blocking off Monroe Street, or a portion of Monrore Street,” Nikki Lewis of Mainstreet Fairmont said Wednesday on the AJR News Network’s Gary Bowden Show. “We have food vendors, all Italian cuisine, Italian type food. We have artisans and crafters inside the Labyrinth, which is the church on Monroe Street. Then we have live entertainment at the Fire Hall,” she said.
Also mentioned as part of the festivities is a newly included beer garden.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes is an Italian-American tradition that celebrates Christmas Eve by having meals of fish and other types of seafood. The seafood represents the tradition of avoiding red meat before Christmas Day, a tradition dated back to the days of Medieval Roman Catholicism. The Fairmont celebration will start Friday with what is called the Festival Cucina, a dinner that will be serving oysters along with plenty of other seafood.
“We have seven chefs come in and prepare seven different courses,” Lewis said. “Then they prepare it in front of the audience, and the audience is able to watch, they receive a recipe for that dish if they would like to recreate it, and then they’re served a sampling of each dish.”
The Saturday celebration will close off Monroe Street in Fairmont — where you’re expected to see a plethora of local vendors offering gifts for the holiday season along with live music throughout the day.
“Well this year we have, the lineup is Fairmont State University Academy of the Arts, so they’ll have their students come up here and perform,” Lewis said. “We have the Mountaineer Sax Quartet, Sam Mano, Benjamin DeFazio, and Wisdom of the Owls,” she said
A parade will take place after the festivals conclusion, across the street from where the festival is set up.
What started out as a small festival to pay tribute to Italian-American heritage has now exploded, Lewis said. People travel states away to partake it the celebrations. According to Lewis, this has turned into a tradition, even for those who aren’t from West Virginia.
“We get people from all over the state and last year, I know we have several people who come in every year from Pittsburgh, it’s like a tradition for them now, and I know last year we had somebody from Michigan, a handful of people from Michigan that came down here for it as well,” she said.
The Feast of the Seven Fishes will begin Saturday at 11:00 a.m. with the festival concluding around 5 p.m.