We observe meatless Fridays around here. This isn't often very hard -- we do our shopping on the weekends, so by Friday the fridge is getting rather bare. (Darwin opened the door the other day and remarked, "It's a bit minimalist, isn't it?") And, although we both like meat, we don't eat it every evening or even all that frequently. I sometimes wonder how much of a sacrifice our meatless Fridays really are.
Every now and then it does impinge on me, such as when we've had a rowdy morning and the girls are clamoring for lunch and I open the fridge and see leftover chicken enchiladas or spaghetti with meat sauce. It's more of a sacrifice for me to make sure the girls don't eat meat on Fridays than not to eat it myself.
Of course, Friday is usually when I get a craving for a thick, juicy hamburger...
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19 hours ago
9 comments:
Oh yes, me too. Or the leftover pepperoni pizza...
Of course, it was *really* penitential growing up, since we ate fish sticks every friday. Yuck!
You can always go Orthodox and give up meat, dairy, and olive oil on Wednesdays and Fridays!
I sometimes wonder how much of a sacrifice our meatless Fridays really are.
It's funny when I talk to Catholics on Friday during Lent and they and they tell me that it's a meatless day so they are going to Red Lobster for dinner. :P
Sometimes I think we get caught up in the "ritual" of meatless Fridays, and forget the sacrifice.
I find that any sort of food-related sacrifice isn't actually much of a sacrifice for me. Except for the time when I couldn't get rootbeer or Chinese food for a whole semester, I've almost never missed what I was not eating.
I decided to go meatless on Fridays, too, though I don't hold Hubby to it at lunch. The girls, though, are almost always with me. (It's a rare thing that they get a hot dog or cold cuts for lunch, and dinner is always meatless now.)
I didn't grow up with it, though, and sometimes it's not easy. Last week, Big Girl's soccer team won their first game ever (at least in her three seasons with the team), so we celebrated by going out to eat at Red Robin's. They've got some beautiful looking burgers and such, and I was just starting to wonder what I'd eat. I was sore tempted to give in to the burger and fries when I noticed fried shrimp.
But I, too, am not sure if it's always a sacrifice. I mean, when you like fish as much as we do, it's pretty pleasant sometimes, though it is a challenge menu-wise in that I don't want to eat the same three meatless meals every month.
Our family does meatless Fridays too. The reason it's penitential is not so much that meat as such does not cross our lips, but that we are giving up our own will by making a prior commitment to be meatless on that day.
So if Costco is giving out fajita samples we are giving up our unexpected opportunity to have a free snack. We're giving up the convenience of grabbing a fast food burger when that would be the easiest choice while traveling. By saying that we won't eat meat on a certain day we are hallowing that day by saying, "Today it's not my own will that shall be done." It's not really about the absence of meat causing us to suffer.
As far as fast food goes, "filet-o-fish" sandwiches are not nearly as tasty as a double quarter pounder with cheese.
How can you guys be so short on meet, I am sure Texas has plenty of 4 legged and winged critters just loafing around in the woods and fields... come on Darwin, put that Mauser to work!
There can be elements of sacrifice to meatless Fridays, but, for me, I find it serves best as a spiritual reminder rather than a sacrifice. I'm glad that we don't have to be so strict about it now, but it still is a useful little discipline.
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