h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We've been having fish on a friday in our house for ages now (part of a healthy eating drive, I had thought) yet it came up in conversation the other day that this is apparently some sort of Christian ritual.

I must have spluttered in amazement because all turned to look at me like I'd just shot the dog - but I professed I'd never heard this before*.

Mum protestant, dad, lapsed catholic - couldn't say why it was only that it was, and I the ardent atheist (so naturally on Fridays I have chicken) who can't even lay claim apparently to being culturally Christian, since apparently I missed the memo about fish on Fridays, can't figure it out.

So that' my question -fish on Fridays and what the blue hell has it got to do with Christianity?

Yours befuddled and baffled.

Clive.




* a little bit like that time I eyed some folks walking round with a dirty mark on their forehead round about March time, looking like they'd lost a head-butting contest with a colliery worker - and was told this was to do with commemorating 'ash Wednesday'

"Taking it a bit literally, aren't they? I asked...

I didn't know it was a Christian thing. Fish on fridays is a sort of cultural norm, but I couldn't tell you the origin.

Ack, I know this. Well, I did once anyway.

I think it's to do with some sort of fasting or a law about not eating flesh on fridays (I cant remeber why it's fridays, I used to know!). Of course fish aren't flesh if you're from the 'back in them' days.

It's mainly a Catholic thing. It's basically a weekly fast day, presumably a hang over from the days when meat was a luxury so refraining from meat on Fridays brought the nobles down to a more humble level.

Apparently all kinds of animals have been 'officially' declared as 'fish' over the years for various reasons.

yes, a lot of waterfowl were included weren't they?

dim recollection of it being from earlier christiantiy (and thus more immediately an RC tradition) taken from the Jewish fast days tradition (since the early christians were jews) but moved to fridays for some arcane reason.

I do know it was more about not eating meat - and thus the fish thing was OK cos fish ain;t meat (and nor is beaver apparently). So it's eating not-meat became eating-fish.

"what the blue hell has it got to do with Christianity?"
More the Dec 25th and 24th Apr (this year)

and I'll guess that the friday tradition is due to the crucifiction being on a friday, would make sense (and thus is probably wrong!).

Oh yes, I knew the fish on friday thingie. In fact, I even had a friend who made a point to eat the uni canteen's grounded steak every friday as a protest (despite not really enjoying it, curiously enough). I should add that the uni canteen did serve fish on fridays, as (I think) many canteens in France.

If I recall the bible's legendary precision on such issues it can't even pin down reliably on what day the crucifixion happened, so timetabling fish for Fridays seems a bit of a stretch if that's the rationale. And even if it is - why fish? I'm not seeing the logical connection. (Of course, I am assuming there is one)

The expensive meat hypothesis - alright but why not have the "not meat" twice a week in that case, or three times?

Surely it can't be in some contorted belief in a sacrifice to god (we have forsaken the sausages!) for then we are moving out of the gentle foothills of strange into the craggy mountains of religious nonsense. (God cares what I eat and when)

Having known (the double standards) of fish not being meat, we've still pretty much always done it that way, to give Ms Stress an evening off, like going out to (eat another night) when we can.

Monday's soo-oop ... Friday's fi-ish...

Fast on the day before the sabbath (seventh day), which Fri night - Sat night was, before Christianity messed about with it.

Is that, I wonder, why some treat Sunday as day 1 (eg USians)?

I don't know why fish, it's quite a big tradition in Christianity.

I long ago seeing a comedy postcard on the wall showing Jesus with a slogan:
Buy Two Loaves, Get One Fish Free

I was baptised as a Catholic, so I could go to the local Catholic primary school (my parents had no religion AFAIK*) and the school dinners were always fish. We also ate fish at home that day in case Father (whatever) came round at tea time

I still have no idea why.

*we were never made to go to church, nor did our parents take us, which meant that I had no idea when to stand up, sit down, kneel down or what the frack I was supposed to be saying, when we had services at school

<>

You have to wait for the bloke in the frock to say "Simon says"

I always understood it to be a Catholic tradition, and to do with the crucifixion being on a Friday. But I've seen the practice much more widespread than that (isn't there a line in Lily the Pink or some other Scaffold song about "Friday is Fish"?)

Certainly seems like a good idea - what's on the menu tonight then?

(We're having steak, stirfried cabbage, peppers and shallots, followed by meringue nests with mango coulis and crystallised ginger and almonds....)

It's not a Christian thing. It's a Catholic thing. In the Church Calendar their are a number of Penitential Days, and all Fridays are included in that list. So, Friday's are days of abstinence, specifically here, abstinence from 'meat'. 'Fish' isn't 'meat' according to Cannon Law.

I seem to remember that there was a clause of Cannon Law at some point in the Middle Ages which determined that rabbits were fish so that coneys could be stewed on Friday by the Monks. I don't know if it's true.

It's not a Christian thing. It's a Catholic thing



I'd wondered. They do rather have a penchant for making stuff up.

Seems strange that this got thorough to my family though, I'd always rather regarded ours as a little enclave of protestantism* against a see of extended family Catholicism coming via Ireland.





*Dad got thrown out by the priest for marrying mum, a protestant, and mum wasn't in good graces for refusing to the priest's face to promise to raise me up as a Catholic.

Recently at Nanna's funeral, we were all offered the cracker but non Catholics had to approach the priest arms folded across their chest rather than palms outstretched.

I stayed where I was. I don't kneel down before priest. Dangerous bloody business is that.

'against a see of extended family Catholicism'

A Holy 'See', I take it.

'Fish on Fridays' is why monasteries had fish ponds within which to raise their own carp and other fish.

Actually I should eat fish more often. There is an amazing diversity, possibly more than for meat in my view. And yet I very seldom eat some, let alone preparing it by myself.

Even though I have teh fish guide, by Guillaume Long himself:

http://long.blog.lemonde.fr/2009/11/25/inventaire-n%C2%B0-2-epater-son-poissonnier/ [fr]



Re catholic / christian: I guess my mixing up both is because I was raised in a more catholicish-leaning-towards-it-doesn't-matter environment, so the finer points are lost on me