As Easter rolls around again, so does Good Friday. If you have a Catholic family member (or even just one with Catholic guilt), you’ll also know that Good Friday is the day where everyone eats fish because red meat is banned. But why on earth do we eat fish on Good Friday?
The actual rule is that no warm blooded animal can be eaten on a Friday. Fish are fair game because they’re cold blooded, and nobody particularly feels like eating reptiles. Also while we aren’t meant to be eating warm blooded animals on any Friday, Good Friday is the day that most people will actually follow that rule. It’s kind of like only going to church on Easter and Christmas.
The history of eating fish on Easter doesn’t end there, though. Back in the 16th century, fish was a staple part of the English diet. It was a pretty grim time to be alive really, what with all the beheadings and general misery, but at least they had a ton of fish to eat on Fridays.
Enter King Henry VIII. Yes, the one who had a lot of wives. When he realised that he was in love with Anne Boleyn while still married to Catherine of Aragon, he threw a tantrum and started his own religion that would allow him to divorce Catherine.
Side note, Catherine got off lightly with the divorce. Anne Boleyn wound up with no head.
The Church of England was born, and began to spread. Not only could you divorce people now, but the ban on eating warm blooded animals on a Friday was also lifted. All of a sudden eating fish was now seen as a ‘popish flesh‘ that people who followed the Church of England looked down on.
The fisherman started to suffer as people ate less fish. So much so in fact, that when King Henry VIIIs son, Edward VI, took over in 1547, eating fish on Fridays was brought back and enshrined in law: “for worldly and civil policy, to spare flesh, and use fish, for the benefit of the commonwealth, where many be fishers, and use the trade of living.”
So when you’re munching away on your fish this Easter, you can thank King Henry VIII for bringing it back to the masses.
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