It’s the smell of Christmas for anyone Italian. My nonna’s kitchen started to smell of it at least a week before Christmas Eve as she started to soak the salted cod in order to have it ready to cook on Christmas Eve. I find that in my old age, just the smell brings me back to my childhood Christmases… and how all us kids HATED the baccala and the ensuing battle as mom insisted we just try it, even though her heart wasn’t in it either because she wasn’t exactly a big fan. As we grew older, the amount of baccala at the Christmas Eve dinner table gradually shrunk until it was just a little dish shared by my dad and his mom. Such is progress.