Posted on February 19, 2010 - by Hubba

Oh Fishsticks!

Wednesday began the season of Lent, as has been noted before, when among other things Catholics are to abstain from all meat except fish on Fridays.  Back in the old days, Catholics were supposed to abstain from meat 52 Fridays a year, but somewhere in there, the rules were relaxed a little.

Which brings a Catholic to the question of what to eat on Fridays during Lent.  I don’t find abstaining from meat one day a week all that bothersome, and there are lots of tasty ways to prepare fish.  There are those people who abhor fish, and for them the whole no-meat-on-Friday probably does seem like an unbearable cross (see what I did there?) but I am not one of those people, provided there are no onions in my fish.  An onion really really onions up a fish it seems like.

The only other drawback, especially for landlubbers in the midwest, is that seafood can be expensive.  This can make a Lenten “fast” seem a little ridiculous when you are “fasting” on something more expensive than what you gave up.

Which brings us to the all-American fish stick.

When I was a kid, at least one third of Friday food was the fish stick.  There were always plenty for everyone, you could have them with ranch dressing or ketchup or tartar sauce, and they were tasty and easy for poor Mother to prepare.

But then the fish stick got phased out of the menu.  I don’t recall when I was a kid waiting eagerly for Fridays so that I could eat fish sticks, and I don’t recall anyone pining for the old days when Pa read the family bible while we all ate our fish sticks.  (Pa never read the bible while anyone ate a fish stick.  And we didn’t call him Pa either.)

The fish stick simply disappeared from the Trask larder without comment.  And I never knew I missed it until I started going out with Bonnie and we had fish sticks one day.  And I, to use the current parlance, I was all like, “hey, fish sticks” and like totally ate a pan of them.

So on the first Friday in Lent, I was really happy to come home and eat a few fish sticks and remember my childhood.  Could I have a little more lemon juice on my sacrifice please?