I was told recently (for what has to be the millionth time) that eating fish on Friday is not abstaining from meat. And that’s true. And it would be pertinent if the Friday abstinence from meat were vegetarian in its aims. Which it’s not. We are to abstain from beef, mutton, pork and chicken. Fish are okay. Why? Well, for one thing, the custom stems from a time when beef and other forms of meat were on the rich man’s table but not very often on the menu of the poor. (Pork was off limits anyway to the Jews, which so many of the early Christians were.) Continue reading “Fish on Friday has nothing to do with vegetarianism” →