Just so you know, these questions come up down here. I’m not sure how an Orthodox bishop would answer the alligator query, but I know crawfish are kosher for Lent.
Lent In Louisiana
59 Responses to Lent In Louisiana
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Eric says:
What’s with the Yoda-esque closing, “Wishing you God’s blessings, I am”?
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David J. White says:
Frog legs are permissible on days of abstinence, too. I think it’s because frogs (and alligators) are cold blooded.
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Hope says:
Best laugh I’ve had all day…thanks! As a cradle Catholic, I had no idea we could consume chicken or beef broth. I came from a family that picked the pork from the top of the pork & beans can before warming. That’s what being raised by a convert will get you. ha!
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Church Lady says:
I guess alligators are officially a species of fish now. Who knew?
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LUKE1732 says:
I guess alligators are officially a species of fish now. Who knew?
If we want to redefine alligators as fish, in what way does that threaten your relationship with alligators? Hmm?
If you don’t want to eat alligator, that’s fine, but don’t tell me what I can or can’t do in the privacy of my own kitchen.
I’m tired of haters like you judging me by what food I love!
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alkali says:
Presumably by the same rationale the Archbishop has given the gators permission to eat swimmers, but not sunbathers.
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JohnH says:
Orthodoxy says shellfish is ok – my bishop has said if it gas a backbone, it isn’t ok on a fast.
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Luke,
If we want to redefine alligators as fish, in what way does that threaten your relationship with alligators? Hmm?
It only threatens my relationship to biology. Alligators aren’t fish. They are amphibians. They breathe air, and have no gills.
If you don’t want to eat alligator, that’s fine, but don’t tell me what I can or can’t do in the privacy of my own kitchen.
Isn’t that the whole point of Lent, of someone telling you what you can or can’t do in the privacy of your kitchen? I’m just pointing the silliness of pretending alligators are a fish, rather than a form of meat. We call it “alligator meat” for a reason. Chow down.
I’m tired of haters like you judging me by what food I love!
I think you ought to address your complaints to the Catholic Church, and the Old Testament’s list of various food restrictions. There’s your haters.
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What’s with the Yoda-esque closing, “Wishing you God’s blessings, I am”?
Because the signature is part of the sentence: “Wishing God’s blessings, I am, Sincerely in Christ, Most Reverend Gregory M. Aymond, Archbishop of New Orleans.”
He was bishop of Austin, and thus my bishop, when I moved to Texas.
BTW, it’s not that the the Catholic Church regards alligators as a species of fish. It’s that alligators (and frogs) are grouped together with fish as permissible in Lent (because they are cold-blooded), as opposed to warm-blooded animals, which are not permissible.
Since most dinosaurs (as I understand the modern consensus in paleontology) were probably warm-blooded, they would be verboten (as is fowl).
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Roger H. says:
So we can eat alligator, great. What’s the verdict on drowning in in BBQ sauce?
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Charles Cosimano says:
Now given that witches are made of wood and thus float, does that mean that alligators, being a species of fish and thus also float are witches? Or does it mean that alligators are made of wood?
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The bishop says they are in the same family. The word “family” has a specific meaning in taxonomy.
We wouldn’t want to sanction alligators mating with carp, to form their own “families”, would we?
And you thought SSM was unnatural?
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JonF says:
I think in the Orthodoxy the division is between vertebrates (fast) and other animals (OK to eat). But on certain fast days fish are still OK– most church calendar specify this with a little fish symbol on those days.
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Maughold says:
I distinctly remember my spiritual father visiting Louisiana years ago and enjoying alligator on a weekend in Lent… must have been one of those gator, wine, and oil days…
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It only threatens my relationship to biology. Alligators aren’t fish. They are amphibians.
You want to force your arbitrary taxonomy of species onto the rest of us. Not everyone believes as you do. You need to be more tolerant of other points of view. Just because some old white guy in a lab coat in some foreign university says so then you automatically believe it. Learn to think for yourself.
What if your son or daughter wanted to become Catholic and then eat alligator on a Friday in Lent? Would you love them any less?
Admit it – you just hate all southerners, don’t you? Oh sure, you watch a little NASCAR now and then, but if one of those drivers moved in next door to you – you’d freak out. You buy into all the stereotypes because you’re too close-minded to actually get to know someone with a different geographical orientation.
See you later, gator-hater!
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Ivan K says:
I’ve heard that both Catholic and Orthodox Lenten Fast laws classify beaver meat as a kind of fish, not that I’d every take advantage of that loophole.
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M_Young says:
“I know crawfish are kosher for Lent.”
I see what you did there, Rod Dreher.
And remember, devout Catholics can eat beaver during lent.*
*Scroll down to ‘Dietary Law’.
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Nice try Luke, but pick a better set of facts. This doesn’t quite cut it. Catholics eating gator during Lent is much more than six degrees of separation from whatever one might think about two men being issued a marriage license.
(Personally, I don’t think that is a marriage, but if a majority of my fellow citizens want to call it one, civilly, I don’t much care.)
Anyway, you’re talking fish and fowl, and they’re not the same thing.
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Alligators also are not amphibians. The word is “reptile”.
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EngineerScotty says:
Time for an old joke.
A Protestant moves into a predominantly Catholic town, back prior to Vatican II, and every Friday he would make a point to barbecue a steak in the backyard. The aroma of the beef and spices would waft through the town, to the chagrin of the fasting Catholics.
Finally, his neighbors convinced him to convert to Roman Catholicism. As he received the sacrament of baptism, the priest sprinkled holy water upon him, and intoned, “you were born a Protestant; you were raised a Protestant, and today you become a Catholic”.
Next Friday, he was at the grill as usual, barbecuing a thick juicy T-bone. His neighbors wandered onto his back porch, to inform him of the error of his ways, and encountered him sprinkling water on the steaks, and intoning: “You were born a cow, you were raised a cow, and now you are a fish”.
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Camp Topisaw says:
Well, Rod, I do happen to know how an Orthodox bishop would answer this question because I asked this exact one of Archbishop Dmitri many years ago. He just sort of rolled his eyes and said, “If you want to eat alligator, go ahead and do it.” I had the impression that he did not consider reptile meat a treat, lenten or otherwise.
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Obviously, as with all things in Lent, speak to your spiritual father or mother. However, I really never understood the attitude that is to claim to be fasting but then eat oysters or get some truffle mushrooms.
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Edward Hamilton says:
It only threatens my relationship to biology. Alligators aren’t fish. They are amphibians. They breathe air, and have no gills.
Alligators are reptiles, and thus are neither fish nor amphibians.
Given the absence of specific dietary restrictions uniquely governing reptiles as a distinct class, I suspect it makes more sense to group them by ecology, rather than cladistics. That’s consistent with the Jewish approach toward dietary categories, providing some precedent.
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Interestingly enough, the capybara is also considered “fish” for the purposes of Lenten eating. When missionaries described the creature in a letter to Rome asking the question of its suitability for Lenten consumption, the pope, informed that the creature lived both on land and in water, declared that it was permitted to be eaten on abstinence days. I think the dispensation remains to this day, though I’d check with higher sources before saying so definitively.
From this, we can see that the question is not “Is it a fish?” but “Does it spend a considerable portion of its life in water?” Frogs and alligators certainly do, and the discovery that some sea-creatures are actually mammals did not get them placed on some fictional Index of Forbidden Lenten Fish-like Mammalian Sea Creatures, either.
This, of course, makes me ponder as a Catholic why creatures who live a good bit of time in the water are exempt from Lenten abstinence requirements. Baptism? Order of creation? Pastoral ease (e.g., not making relatively uneducated people decide whether that thing in their fishing boat’s net was the sort of creature one was allowed to eat on Friday or not)? I’m sure there’s a reason.
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Fr. Frank says:
Alkali — please know that His Excellency’s determination is binding only on the consciences of Catholic alligators. Regarding their consumption of swimmers vs. sunbathers — sed contra: a Catholic alligator could eat both swimmers and sunbathers Sundays through Thursdays during Lent, but could consume neither on Lenten Fridays. Neither may they eat them from Holy Thursday through the remainder of the Sacred Triduum, until the Fast officially ends with the First Mass of Easter.
Mr. Cosimano — alligators, lacking the faculty of free will and volition, are incapable of being witches. Natural law, therefore, tells us that alligators are, in fact, made of wood.
You’re welcome.
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B. Minich says:
Oh my! This is so great!!
Hurrah Louisiana!
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Nick K. says:
Possibly one of the greatest comment threads in the history of the internet.
I am comforted knowing that if I become a Catholic I can still chow down on alligator, muskrat, and capybara(!) during fasting times.
Thankfully, there are no gators here in Oregon, but presumably Catholics here can eat nutria meat during Lent, as the nutria is a rodent which spends a great deal of its time in or near water. I’ll write the Curia tomorrow and have it added to the Index of Permissible but Strange Animals that One May Eat During Lent.
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Please do not neglect the humble snapping turtle, which is also permissible on fast days here in Louisiana. Suffering for the Faith is so much more palatable after a large bowl of soupe de tortue with dry, dry sherry drizzled over the top.
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Is there a Travel Channel show in here somewhere? Bizarre Foods: Lent Edition?
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My question about eating nutria: who would WANT to? I can’t imagine that thing tastes good. At ALL.
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alcogito says:
I think a little semantic clarification is in order for our non-Catholic/Orthodox brethren, as two terms appear to be confused. Both fasting and abstinence are observed in Lent.
Abstinence means refraining from eating meat.
Fasting means eating only one full meal a day. “Two other meals, sufficient to maintain strength, may be taken according to each one’s needs, but together they should not equal the other full meal. Eating between meals is not permitted, but liquids, including milk and juices, are permitted.”
These are both required on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and all Fridays in Lent, and strongly recommended the rest of the time. (That’s Catholics. It may be stronger for Orthodox. Rod will advise.) The young and elderly are not required to observe these rules, and there are health exemptions, of course.
Making a sacrifice which reminds you of the penitential season is the whole point.
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DanW says:
Over here on the northern Baltic Sea, seal meat also counted as fish for Lent.
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Ah, creative systematics! I once heard a story about mullet fishermen claiming (in order to get around some regulation) that because they kept the captured fish in underwater pens made of chicken wire, the mullet were actually poultry.
And there was the famous bus-drivers’ credo: “Dogs is dogs and cats is dogs, but turtles is insects, and rides free.”
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Luke, nicely done, nicely done! The best.
“What if your son or daughter wanted to become Catholic and then eat alligator on a Friday in Lent? Would you love them any less? ”
The traditional view of alligators is clearly discriminatory. It breaks my heart that 110% of all homeless youth were kicked out of no-alligator-eating homes. All of it because of Church Lady’s knuckle-headed belief that alligators aren’t fish! Why can’t her views on alligators just evolve?
Her kind of alligatorphobia has no place in a civilized society. Alligators are here, they’re fish, and they aren’t going anywhere.
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“Alligators aren’t fish. They are amphibians. They breathe air, and have no gills.”
Turmarion says: I hope this is facetious, since gators are not amphibians, either, but reptiles!
Facetious? Are you insane? This is the issue of our times.
What if a gator feels more comfortable as a fish, hmm? Then it is a fish. You’re just a bigot if you insist that it is a reptile.
Didn’t you see that interview on CNN with that gator? “I’ve always felt that I was a fish from the time I can first remember. My brain knows that I’m not a reptile. Do you think therapy could change me?! My body may disagree, but really deep down, I’m a fish.”
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I love this on so many levels. Wonder how much research the bishop had to do to find the answer?
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MH - Secular Misanthropist says:
M_Young beat me to the beaver joke, and Erin pointed out another water living rodent that is kosher for lent. That leaves me with only one thing to add.
What about nutria? Could the devout eat them and solve an environmental problem at the same time?
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Thanks, Heather, for showing up. I was beginning to wonder if everyone had given up satire for Lent.
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Giaccomo says:
Brought to you by:
The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and FisheriesHeart Healthy ‘Crock-Pot’ Nutria
2 hind saddle portions of nutria meat
1 small onion, sliced thin
1 tomato, cut into big wedges
2 potatoes, sliced thin
2 carrots, sliced thin
8 Brussels sprouts
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup water
2 teaspoons chopped garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup demi-glace (optional)Layer onion, tomato, potatoes, carrots and Brussels sprouts in crockpot. Season nutria with salt, pepper and garlic, and place nutria over vegetables. Add wine and water, set crockpot on low and let cook until meat is tender (approximately 1-1/2 hours). Garnish with vegetables and demi-glace. Makes four servings.
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@Fr. Frank: Alkali — please know that His Excellency’s determination is binding only on the consciences of Catholic alligators. Regarding their consumption of swimmers vs. sunbathers — sed contra: a Catholic alligator could eat both swimmers and sunbathers Sundays through Thursdays during Lent, but could consume neither on Lenten Fridays. Neither may they eat them from Holy Thursday through the remainder of the Sacred Triduum, until the Fast officially ends with the First Mass of Easter.
I stand corrected! Now it’s just a matter of teaching the alligators Latin, I suppose.
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Giaccomo, I am stunned that there are nutria recipes, but with enough garlic, salt, and wine I suppose anything would taste good.
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The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries has a total of 7 recipes listed, including nutria sausage & nutria chili.
Nutria are destroying the marshes in south Louisiana & W&F is trying all sort of ways to reduce the out-of-control population, including trying to get people to eat them.
I haven’t heard whether they taste like chicken.
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Ah, taxonomy. Alligators are amphibious reptiles, but not of the class “Amphibia”. Amphibious merely means “able to use either land or water”. Fish can only live in water.
Luke,
You want to force your arbitrary taxonomy of species onto the rest of us. Not everyone believes as you do.
There’s nothing arbitrary about taxonomy. It’s an actual science, meaning it’s based on the observed characteristics of living creatures, and their evolutionary lineages. It’s not a question of belief, but of evidence.
And to put it more bluntly, alligators are not “fish”, in anyone’s sense of the word. I don’t know of any southerners who think of “gator” as a variety of fish, or as in the “fish family”, just because they spend a lot of time in the water.
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By the way, Heather, I am definitely afraid of alligators. Unless they are simmering in onions.
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If I were eating a nutria stew then the demi-glace would definitely not be optional.
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DS says:
Luke, that was expletive brilliant, though it pains me to agree with the transgendered-coconut-bra-dissing Heather.
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This thread brought to mind a line from the Catholic sci-fi novel, “A Canticle for Leibowitz.”
The scene is 600 years into the future, after the Flame Deluge has destroyed civilization. The Church survived, and monasticism is the last refuge of learning. A novice, Francis, is going through a 40-day strict Lenten fast in the desert to discern his vocation. A moment of weakness on Palm Sunday leads to “the most succinct confession that Francis ever made, or Cheroki ever heard: ‘Bless me Father; I ate a lizard.’ Prior Cheroki, having for many years been confessor to fasting penitents, found that custom had, with him, as with a fabled gravedigger, given it all a ‘property of easiness,’ so that he replied with perfect equanimity and without a blink, ‘Was it an abstinence day, and was it artificially prepared’.”
Lee
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Ah, taxonomy. Alligators are amphibious reptiles, but not of the class “Amphibia”. Amphibious merely means “able to use either land or water”. Fish can only live in water.
So now you admit that alligators can “swing both ways”. Play for “either team” so to speak. They can “switch hit”. Act like a reptile on Thursday, like a fish on Friday. Well, I’ve got news for you Church Lady, when I’m loving me some alligator this Friday, I don’t really care where it’s been the rest of the week. I don’t judge. If you love something, set it free. Unless you want to eat it instead.
There’s nothing arbitrary about taxonomy. It’s an actual science, meaning it’s based on the observed characteristics of living creatures, and their evolutionary lineages. It’s not a question of belief, but of evidence.
Oh sure, just “rely on the plain meaning of the text” in your book of Actual Science, right? You don’t seem to realize it, but it’s just YOUR INTERPRETATION of the text. Without apostolic succession and a magisterium to guide you, you can blissfully believe whatever you want. Several of the commenters above consider the alligator a reptile – and they’re reading from the same book as you! How can that be?
In John 21, after his resurrection, Jesus prepared fish for his apostles. Fish – not reptiles. Fish for breakfast!!! Clearly Jesus was rejecting the customs of the Pharisees who never ate fish for breakfast. Jesus gave those same apostles the power to bind and loose. Bishop Aymond is the direct successor to those apostles and if he says alligator is seafood, then that’s good enough for me.
Alligators are predecessor cousins of dinosaurs, therefore they would be closer to chicken than to seafood.
Seriously though, that letter is awesome.