Lenten Fish Dinners Are on the Menu
Cleveland Fish Fries and Spanish Salt Cod Mark the Season
A meal of Bacalao a la Vizcaína, a Spanish meal that is eaten during Lent, is pictured.
By Anna Krejci
As a Clevelander, I look forward to Lenten fish fries. Lent began on Ash Wednesday, which was March
5 this year. Corey and I usually return
to a Catholic church for our fish fries, as well as a Veterans of Foreign Wars
Post fish fry we like every year. They
have tasty meals. Many non-profits will
serve fish during Lent as fundraisers to support their mission projects. You can find meals at restaurants, too, and
of course, you can make fish dinners at home on Fridays in observance of Lent. Fish fries have religious significance. Many Christians avoid eating meat on Fridays
during Lent out of reverence for Jesus’ crucifixion that is remembered each
spring on Good Friday. Indeed, fish
fries on Fridays have been occasions that probably make a season like Lent too
much fun, but I enjoy them anyway, and I think I can make time for serious
reflection during Lent, too.
Solemn Lent
Lent is meant to be a solemn season. It lasts for 40 days leading up to Easter
Sunday when Christians remember that Jesus, the Messiah, was resurrected by God
after his crucifixion. I celebrate
Easter believing my own life will be resurrected when I die, albeit I will take
a new form and I have no knowledge of what the afterlife will be like, except
that I know God loves me and I expect to be with God.
Lent is a period when I ask forgiveness of my sins and
remember Jesus’ suffering by oppressors in the ancient Roman Empire. To me, Jesus was a person who existed and
really did die horribly by Romans as he was nailed to a cross. He really did rise from death, although I
don’t try to explain how. Rather, I let
it be something that I will not understand fully but still believe in. I believe I will be resurrected after I die,
but it will not be like Jesus’ resurrection as told in the Bible. It will be in another sense that allows my
body to return to the earth. Environmentalism
carries special meaning for me since I see myself as part of the planet, not as
a being who just takes from the earth but one who should care for Earth as in
caring for herself and others.
Lent is Observed
Abroad
I tend to take a global view, and I find it meaningful how
Christians around the world observe Lent. The first Friday in Lent this year,
Corey and I made a recipe for salt cod that was inspired by the Basque Country
of Spain. I have been interested in
Spanish culture for much of my life; I studied and lived in Madrid two decades
ago. I did not travel to Basque Country
in the north, but I have since learned that salt cod is a meal prepared in
various ways across Spain, especially during Lent. By having made the meal, I reminded myself
that I am in solidarity with others this Lent – even in solidarity with
Spaniards who allowed me to live among them for almost a year. Many people acknowledge that they themselves,
and this world, are not alright. We have
difficulties. People are suffering from
wars, from disease, from pollution, from poverty and in many other ways. However, in practicing my faith, I think we
look for ways to comfort and heal one another; we try to solve the problems that
we share.
Cooking with New
Foods
In her book, “Savoring Spain and Portugal,” author Joyce
Goldstein writes that in old times salt cod in Spain was eaten by the poverty-stricken
as well as by the wealthy. Cod was
caught at sea and preserved with salt so it could be transported back to
markets. In fact, for a time, cod eaten
in Spain originated from the work of Basque fishermen who sailed to other parts
of the world to bring it back. This Lent we made Bacalao a la Vizcaína, which
means it was the Bay of Biscay variety of salt cod. When it is prepared during Lent, the recipe
uses no lard, therefore making it a completely meatless meal. I felt slightly
uncomfortable by making the meal, in a way, because I was using ingredients I’d
never used before. Lent is a season that can take us out of our comfort zones –
certainly it does for me when I think of my own wrongs and mortality and the
suffering that even the Son of God faced when he died.
About Our Bay of
Biscay Salt Cod Meal
Making the salt cod meal, or at least attempting it, was a
satisfying experience, even though we had to make some major deviations from
the original recipe. The original recipe
was found in Goldstein’s book, “Savoring Spain and Portugal.”
We did not find salt cod this time of year in either of the
two grocery stores we went to. So, we
gradually thawed frozen cod fillets in the refrigerator overnight to use in the
recipe. Salt cod would have required a
process of soaking the fish in water and changing out the water several times,
before cooking it. I don’t give a full
explanation of how to prepare salt cod here.
As for the meal we made, we boiled the fish and made the
sauce. The sauce was made of olive oil,
red pepper, garlic, breadcrumbs, hard-boiled egg yolk, onion, sweet paprika and
flavored with chili powder. It was
delicious. The sauce is spread on top of
the fish in a casserole dish, and then it is baked in the oven for the finish. The recipe uses ancho chilies. I never used ancho chilies before, and we
were supposed to remove pulp from the chilies after we had boiled them and add
the pulp to the sauce. Well, there was
no pulp to remove, so we substituted chili powder for pulp. As I said, this was my first time making this
recipe, and I do not know why I had trouble with the ancho chilies. Even given that setback, we enjoyed the meal. We also made oven-baked potato wedges. I recommend eating oven-roasted asparagus
with the meal, too.
Work Cited
Goldstein, Joyce. Savoring Spain and Portugal. Oxmoor House, 2000, Menlo Park, CA.
Additional Resource
Roden, Claudia. The Food of Spain. Harper Collins,
2011, New York.
