Rich Leonardi notices this article
If meat will be missing from your table this Lent — a 40-day period of prayer, penance and sacrifice for Roman Catholics and other Christians — savory seafood dishes are a great way to replicate the hearty comfort foods you’ll be giving up.
Catholics often observe Lent in part by abstaining from meat on Fridays. This recipe for swordfish with tomato-olive ragu provides the meaty texture and heft you otherwise would miss.
Because Lent is all about giving up things without noticing you are giving up anything.
13 comments
Funny post. A priest once told our congregation, “Lent is a time for feeling guiltiy for not feeling guilty enough.”
Happy (?) Lent! And thanks for my morning chuckles. I’ll have to find something to give up other than the ‘Jester!
Hey, what’s that on your forehead?
Blech! Meaty fish are not my preferred seafood anyway. My problem is, I will take fish over meat any day. So one year I gave up shrimp…
Forget the fish: pizza with capybara pepperoni is the way to go!
You obviously missed Fr Pacwa on EWTN last night. He said specifically the idea here is mortification which doesn’t include substituting lobster (swordfish?) for steak 🙂
Has anyone else seen church bulletin announcements for Knights of Columbus-sponsored all-you-can-eat fish fries? Talk about missing the point.
Fried fish is a penance for me. I think that it completely destroys the taste of it.
I’ve been going meatless every Friday since last Lent, and there are times when it’s tough (like when we went to Smoky Bones for dinner with my parents, who don’t keep meatless Fridays, and I sat across from my mother with her rack of ribs and next to my father with his red-meat dinner). Mostly, it’s a matter of making something we’ll all enjoy. It’s not always a big penance, but I figured that I should at least do a small one, right?
But if you give up meat every Friday, how is it more of a penance in this time of penance (Lent)? Maybe making Fridays a day of fasting, as well?
I knew a priest when I was little who used to give up his reclining chair on Fridays because he loved fish too much. He was an awesome priest, we should have more like him.
I, personally, prefer seafood to meat but I still find no-meat Fridays mortifying enough. As much as I love seafood, I do crave meat at times and sometimes the cravings come on Fridays of Lent. I find it mortifiyng that I can’t have Lenten Fridays off when I usually abstain from meat anyway most of the time for the rest of the year.
THat said, I think the advertisement does miss the point. I’ve seen worse ads: those that scream, “Abstain without the pain” or restaurants that pride themselves as being the only restaurants open on Good Friday (here in the Philippines most establishments, even malls, close on Good Fridays.)
On the other hand, I’ve seen good advertisements of Lenten seafood offerings where the message is that Lenten observance is a joyful sacrifice, with an implied message that the restaurant is in solidarity with the rest of Christendom. An example is the advertisement of the McDonalds Fillet-o-Fish meal here in the Philippines.
To Christine the Soccer Mom: try fried fish with soy sauce mixed with calamansi (Philippine lemon) juice. Irresistible!
Of course, in New Orleans, the fish never stops flowing (like liquor during Prohibition), and the quantities traditionally increase during Fridays in Lent. Drove my mom nuts–nonpracticing though she was. So perhaps the mortification for me is to be in central Texas during Lent! McFishFillet here-I-come!
For Christine: Pre-Vatican II, the practice was no meat at all during Lent, and every Friday of the year. I believe Fridays in Lent were fast days as well.
When I lived in Baton Rouge, one of our parish priests used to remind us every year, “There’s no point in giving up meat if you’re going to pig out on shrimp!”
I seem to remember from my benighted youth, when everyone routinely abstained from meat on all Fridays, that we abstained from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent.
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When and where did the substitution of seafood begin? I doesn’t seem like much of a sacrifice to give up bologna for grilled snapper 🙁
mmm.. nice design, I must say..
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