(found it on the Enquirer site)
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.
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Which brings up a good question: is lobster thermidor a non-carnis dish?
Well, it's not worded correctly, and obviously the spirit is wrong. But there's no reason that Lent and cuisine can't go together, assuming that "excessive attachment to culinary cooking" or "spending too much money on food that you should give to the poor" isn't one of your problems. Traditional Lenten and Friday dishes are something that too many Catholic homes neglect, and there are plenty of them.
If you're only going to eat one real meal a day and another tiny snacky one or two, the real meal has to stick to the ribs of you and your family. Period. You're supposed to be fasting, not fainting; abstaining, not getting an aching head. You have to make sure that all the vitamins and nutrients are supplied, too. This has been a focus of the Catholic cook since the year 33 or so, and rightly so.
I have to say that I also hold a good deal of sympathy for the medieval castle cook, who had to do all this while making formal and pretty enough food to honor their patrons and their patrons' noble guests -- yet not endanger their souls with excessive luxury. (And back then _every_ Friday was meatless, and Lent had a lot more food restrictions.) Truly, it's an education to read cookbooks.
Today in his homily, Father slammed those who go out for Lobster dinner on Fridays of Lent as missing the point.
In related news, a local Knights of Columbus group is having an all-you-can-eat fish fry today. That all-you-can-eat bit seems to be in keeping with the whole fasting aspect of the day, doesn't it?
You have to make sure that all the vitamins and nutrients are supplied, too.
No, you don't.
Fasting means depriving yourself. It's not some kind of diet plan.
Going without your RDA for Vitamins A, C, D, E, and K, on TWO days a year --- that's right, two --- is not going to kill you or even endanger your health. If it does, you're probably exempt from the fasting discipline.
The "2 small meals plus one regular-size meal" we eat on the two fast days need to contain enough calories to
maintain our strength for fulfilling the duties of our state in life. Other than that, it can be poverty food.
Dear Rich,
These recipes appeared in Dayton too, along with (mis)information about Lent and an article about a UDayton student who gave some of his Chipotle winnings to feed the hungry.
I'm reminded of a story I heard from a retired priest in Toledo. Back when the Friday abstinence was first relaxed, the pastor of one parish announced to his two assistants that meat would never be served on Fridays as long as he was pastor. The assistants disagreed. The next Friday, the assistants had hot dogs for dinner. The pastor had lobster.
You guys only _think_ I'm joking about fasting and fainting. My mother found out the hard way that if she let me go to sleep without supper, I'd throw up in the middle of the night. Imagine the fun I have whenever I miscalculate in Lent.
FYI, bread and water does include pretty much every nutrient you need, particularly if you make it with whole grains the way they did back in the day, and you stone-grind the flour. The monks had a lot of deprivations and they didn't eat much unless they were worker monks -- but they weren't dying of malnutrition, on the whole.
PS. But I bet your mother never fed you "poverty food" during Lent. Unless you think grilled cheese or deviled eggs are poverty food; we thought they were delicious delicacies.
Deviled eggs do indeed go back to the days of medieval Lent and Friday foods, btw.
I think you're confusing fasting and abstinence.
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