St. Joseph's Spaghetti (Spaghetti di San Giuseppe)

St. Joseph’s Spaghetti (Spaghetti di San Giuseppe) is a plain dish of long strands of pasta topped with toasted breadcrumbs, sometimes pine nuts toasted with a little orange zest, fresh minced parsley, and currents.

On March 19th St. Joseph's Day, Grandma from Rome, Italy would make this dish every year to celebrate the day.

She referred to this meal as peasant food since it was inexpensive to make but very special in preparation when she was growing up and considered it a special feast to celebrate the day.

This dish was traditionally served on Christmas Eve and St. Joseph's Day but can be made any time of the year.

Considering back in the 1800s many ingredients were scarce plus this meal is considered a poor man's food, they made what they had on hand into a feast.

Grandma was born in that time period and her parents taught her how to transform the simplest ingredients and repurpose them into a fantastic meal like this one.

I asked Grandma one day"Why the toasted breadcrumbs were on top"? Grandma replied, "St. Joseph was a carpenter and the toasted breadcrumbs resembled sawdust to honor his trade".

Grandma would make her own coarse breadcrumbs out of stale bread (since my dad, her son) worked in a local bread bakery so we had plenty of bread left over he would bring home.

This flavorful dish has anchovies in it, and sometimes Grandma added sardines if that's all we had in the pantry.

Many other Regions in Italy added currents, orange zest, and pine nuts, which we included as an option to adapt this recipe to how your family served this dish.

For dessert, we also make St. Joseph's Day Zeppole which is a ricotta cream-filled delicious Italian dessert every year as a tradition.

Grandma's version of this recipe is at the bottom of this post just scroll all the way down to print this off.

My Best Italian Christmas Roundup

Every year Mom had special traditions in our Italian family on Christmas Day and of course we celebrate the birthday of our Lord.


These recipes are all handed down through the years in our Italian household from Grandma, Mom, and Aunts and the recipes were continued on through each generation on to our kids and grandchildren.


We still do the 7 fishes on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is traditionally Lasagna, Antipasto and Ham or Lamb ,but don't forget to check out our Holiday side dishes.


We all love Italian desserts and struffoli is at the top of the list of must make along with many cookies.


Stroll through this delicious gallery of recipes and see if anything jars your Italian family's memory of Christmas traditional meals.


During the month of December, we love to make homemade candies and special treats for the kids and holidays are perfect for family fun, carrying on traditions and keeping our loved ones alive with their memories in the kitchen.


Here is a great roundup I make every year to celebrate the present family and those we lost with love and gratitude they left behind their culinary legacy.

Christmas in July Cookies and More

Midnight mass on Christmas Eve, wrapping gifts and frosting cookies, we make great memories in our family year after year.

Over the years we have lost lots of our loved ones but continue to instill the traditions with the new generations, hoping they fall into our footsteps of great memories someday in their futures.

Making those special moments with Mom and Dad, our Grandparents, and years of gatherings with cousins, Aunts, and Uncles have distant memories now but they molded our lives with the best holidays.

We have a basic cookie dough that makes over 85 cookies to try just by adding mix-ins perfect for Wedding, Christmas in July and of course the regular Christmas holiday called Variety Cookies (don't miss trying this basic recipe shown below in the first photo!).

Here are just a few of our favorite things we make to celebrate the season and foods we love.

Feast of 7 Fishes

Feast of 7 Fishes is a  Traditional Italian Christmas Eve serving 7 Fishes and as long as I could remember as a child I helped clean the octopus and learned how to make baccala along with more than even 6 more.

This is a long story of my childhood and memories made celebrating the birth of Christ and the meaning behind all Italian traditions.

As the years went by, Grandma, Grandpa, my mom, and dad continued to instill their traditions from their Regions in Italy brought to America with their teachings.

Now as an adult and they have long passed on, I continue to do the feast of 7 fishes to celebrate the birthday of the lord, midnight mass, and food traditions.

The memories that were made are priceless, and although the food continues to evolve from generation to generation in taste, quality, and presentation, we still always stick to those yearly Christmas Eve special foods.

Our Italian family will always remember the reason for the season first and are very thankful no matter what our table has on it year after year we are grateful we have each other.

Although born in America and raised in Utica, New York, (also referred to as "Little Italy") our values were instilled by our parents and grandparents and several of us still carry on traditions from one generation to another.