Meals on Certain Days ??

M0nica

I do not think the reuirement was to eat fish on a Friday, but not to eat meat.

As a child my mother had a range of Friday main meals based on eggs, cheese and potatoes. We did not have fish very often.

I believe this is correct.

The act of penance is not eating meat. I always thought of fish as meat - it's confusing. Mum cooked fish on Friday. We cooked fish on Friday, until we quit eating all forms of meat, poultry and fish.

I do not think the reuirement was to eat fish on a Friday, but not to eat meat.

As a child my mother had a range of Friday main meals based on eggs, cheese and potatoes. We did not have fish very often.

Norah

ViceVersa

I'm sure I've asked this before, but can't remember if anyone came up with an answer - why do Catholics (in particular) eat fish on a Friday?

Act of penance.

I was always told, because the Crucifixion was on Friday and, yes, fish is seen as nearer to fasting than meat.
No idea if this is true.

Another reason for Fish Friday, it is believed that Jesus died on a Friday, hence Good Friday , hence penance , hence abstinence .

Our meals were pretty flexible except Monday was always cold roast meat leftover from Subday with jacket spuds or buttery mash with chives and salad! Yum

M0nica

Allira cooked and prepared with care, with a really tasty stuffing and then cooked long and slow, sheeps hear is a very different dishto the school dinner version.

I'm not going to try it!

My Mum still cooks stuffed sheep hearts

This reminds me of Shirley Valentine

Allira cooked and prepared with care, with a really tasty stuffing and then cooked long and slow, sheeps hear is a very different dishto the school dinner version.

M0nica

Greciangirl

I always remember my mother cooking sheep’s,hearts, but not sure what day it was.
How on earth did I eat them.

I love stuffed sheeps heart. So did my father, so if he came to stay with me when DH was away on business(DH did not like sheeps heart), we would treat ourselves

We had that at school dinners.
I always hated it.

Greciangirl

I always remember my mother cooking sheep’s,hearts, but not sure what day it was.
How on earth did I eat them.

I love stuffed sheeps heart. So did my father, so if he came to stay with me when DH was away on business(DH did not like sheeps heart), we would treat ourselves

When I was cooking for a family I made a list of 14 different meals, to last a fortnight. I was, and am, very unimaginative about cooking, and once the list was made, it meant I didn’t have to think. I felt that a fortnightly repeat made the meals seem reasonably varied.

I always remember my mother cooking sheep’s,hearts, but not sure what day it was.
How on earth did I eat them.

Growing up it was always the same with only slight variations:

Sunday a roast - beef mostly. Pork seemed to be seasonal (only eaten when there was an ‘r’ in the month), as was lamb - spring onwards.

Monday cold cuts and bubble and squeak

Tuesday some sort of stew or hot pot with dumplings

Wednesday meat and potato pie which I hated but was made to sit staring at until I eventually gave in and ate it!

Thursday cod in parsley sauce😝 (“the piece of cod which passeth all understanding!”) and mashed potato.

Friday sausages or liver with mash and onion gravy. Dad got steak or chops.

Saturday a full English at lunch time, and usually kippers or fish cakes for tea.

Ditto and we were not Catholic. I still do it too..lol

I think that the routine meals were affected by other things. In the days before automatic washing machines, wash day was more or less that. I remember us having a washing machine with a mangle on the top of it, but my mother still had to put things through the wringer , which was quite tough work especially bedding etc. She had an electric iron, but no steam one in those days, and she baked and made just about everything from scratch. So part of the menu was to fit in with the work and looking after 2 little girls at the time, and we came home for lunch from school too.

That meant that the sunday lunch was a roast that then provided cold meat to be eaten with baked potatoes and salad, or bubble and squeak in the winter. She would have been working hard sorting the washing out and needed to have a meal that could be made quickly . Middle of the week sort of meals could be liver and kidney done with onions and mushrooms with lovely gravy with it, and we also often had fish on fridays , despite the fact that we were not catholic. But of course the fishmonger had a good choice for those who were and so we also then had more choice so we would also have lovely fresh fish, and range from straightforward fish and chips to kedgeree (which I loved!) made with brown rice and hardboiled eggs, or some smoked haddock. Saturdays were a day for simple things as we would be doing a lot of things so it was quick and easy to prepare and sometimes when we were doing different things it would have to be either a stew prepared beforehand and just reheated or egg and bacon sort of thing. No microwave, or airfryer available then .So with no fridge but a proper pantry with a cold slab to put the milk and butter etc on, it was a matter of not being rigid about meals or how the day would go but you had got to get through these things with no help and that meant that patterns of meals helped you.

Later with the mod cons available my mother went on to cook whatever she felt like and it was usually very good . I loathed white sauce and even more horrible parsley sauce, but that was the only meal I didnt enjoy. Even today I really find it amazing when I see frozen bubble and squeak or bread and butter pudding, as to me they were dishes that were to use up food in a practical way and waste not want not, and I think we are lucky to have a great range of food available to us now.

ViceVersa

I'm sure I've asked this before, but can't remember if anyone came up with an answer - why do Catholics (in particular) eat fish on a Friday?

Act of penance.

I spent my later childhood in Fife too, Dunfermline. My Mum’s idea of a day out was to visit Perth because there was an M&S there. She would always buy a Vesta risotto and that is what we had for the evening meal. I loved them and wish I could still buy them.
We weren’t well off but somehow we always had a Sunday roast and then cottage pie or rissoles the following days. High tea on Sunday too with sandwiches, victoria sponge and fruit. I enjoyed that unless the fruit was prunes. How I hated them.

I grew up in the 50s and 60 and was one of that generation who knew which day of the week it was by what was on our dinner plate. No Italian, Chinese or Indian food was available in those days, or maybe it just hadn't reached Fife. I remember buying a Vesta curry in the early 70s, when I was first married, and thought I was very cosmopolitan.

Witzend

No such thing in my family when I was a child, and I’ve certainly never done it.
Who else remembers Shirley Valentine, where her husband was very cross because she’d given him something else on ‘chips and egg’ night?

She had given her neighbour’s huge ‘vegetarian’ whining dog her husband’s steak, so they had chips and egg for the second time that week.

Sunday roast for us too, then joint used up as cold meat and chips on Monday, some sort of pie on Tuesday.
Wednesday was a bit hit and miss,
Thursday was Dad’s half- day so he’d do the shopping and cook something tasty.
Friday fish, as for so many.
Saturday was a pot luck.

My mum didn’t enjoy cooking at all, Dad did. We would go to my Gparents on Sundays and they would give us the roast remnants to use up.

Lent was always meat free, and now I cook mostly vegetarian dishes all year round for myself, adding a meat element for my OH.
Our only standard meal is fish fingers and apple crumble with custard when the Gchn come for a Friday sleepover. That has been a custom since GC1 was tiny and there is outrage if it varies!

Sorry I know there are some spelling errors in the above. Eyes are a bit bad today.

Up until the early 50's it depended on rationing and very limited. Dad grew potatoes, snowball turnips and leeks.
Food wasn't so different after rationing. Although there was more choice, there was also poverty through disability. There would have been about 20 meals, interspersed with things like stovies without meat. Potatoes were always the mainstay. It took me many years to realise that I didn't need to do as many.
But the piece definitely resistance was Mum's soup. She could turn anything into great soup. We were fortunate that we had a meat marker. Ham ribs and knuckles made delicious lentil or split pea soup. Her puddings were to die for, baked rice, apple sponge or rhubarb tarts. Never a recipe crossed her hand.
I remember one day she went to a food demonstration and was delighted to learn how to make baked Alaska.
I grew up healthy and sturdy and had good health for many years. I think because of my Mum's cooking.
I tried many different recipes and cuisines, but now, I find myself going back to some of those simple meals.
I feel quite emotional reading back and writing.

I'm sure I've asked this before, but can't remember if anyone came up with an answer - why do Catholics (in particular) eat fish on a Friday?

We always had fish in Friday. Mother was a Catholic and my Uncle had a share in a fish stall in our City wholesale fresh fish market.

We used to have platefuls of all the best fish landed at Fleetwood including plaice, cod, silver hake etc.

Haddock was considered to be tasteless and downmarket. Only fit to give the cat. My mother wouldn't entertain it

I can't believe the price of fish nowadays and haddock is still tasteless.

But l still have great memories of Fish in Friday nights