Meatless Fridays
Chocolate Bunnies, Dyed Eggs, Bonnets and White Gloves, as a child for me that was Easter. To be honest, it still is. I mean sure, as a young Italian Catholic I was dragged to Church to get ashes on the Wednesday that started Lent, I sported my new dress, saddle shoes and lace gloves to Church on Easter Sunday, and didn’t eat meat on Fridays, but what did it all mean to me. Nothing. I did it because I had to because I was told to. I ate my weight in Cadbury eggs and hollow chocolate bunnies, colored eggs for hours and waited anxiously for the Easter Bunny to hide his goodies so I could hunt for them the following morning because I wanted to.
Well, the times have changed. As an adult living in a new and often strange city, sorry LA, I find that what I most want now is meaning, depth, fulfillment, traditions, even religious ones that have more to it than that come to Jesus rush I get from indulging in too much chocolate. With Easter a mere few weeks away, I decided it would be the perfect time, and the most obvious, to re-explore my faith, specifically that period before Easter known as Lent. Why were we forbidden from eating meat? Why did we have to give something up? Why was it always food? Did it have anything to do with being Italian? Why could I never remember to not eat that piece of bacon or bite of hamburger on Fridays? So many questions, here are the answers.
So as it turns out, Catholicism is the dominant religion in Italy and Lent, the period of 40 days following the ever popular Carnevale, is a time revered and honored religious tradition followed strictly by Italian Catholics. Considered the holiest time of the year, and known as Quaresima, or the 40th day in Italian, Lent is the word Catholics use to describe the fast before Easter. The idea is to abstain from certain things, especially on Fridays, as penance for our sins, and to reflect on Jesus’ resurrection, especially on Sundays during Lent. Forty is a significant number in the Bible – to name a few examples, Moses is on the mountain for 40 days, it rains for 40 days and nights in the story of Noah’s Arc, and Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness praying and fasting, according to religion and Bible experts.
Now we all know Lent last 40 days, but is it just me but those 40 days just seem to sneak up on you year after year? Often, I don’t know it’s Ash Wednesday until I see people walking around with ashes on their heads or I remember that the American version of the Italian Carnevale, Mardi Gras is synonymous with Fat Tuesday or Martedi Grasso and is the day before the 40 day fast, often capped off with a celebration of gluttony. The reason for this is because Easter does not fall on the same day every year. The Nicean Council decided in A.D. 325 that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, unless the first full moon also rose on a Sunday, in which Easter would be celebrated the Sunday after that. For over 1500 years we have continued to mark the celebration of Easter based on these calculations. Lent begins 40 days before then.
The giving up on meat on Fridays comes from the mindset, if Moses, Noah and Jesus could do it, so can we. Well, I can tell you from experience that while the notion is noble, not eating meat is a lot harder than it sounds, believe it or not. I hardly consider myself a huge meat eater, yet it’s amazing how many more times I found myself unconsciously eating taking a nibble or bite of meat here or there during these 40 day veggie/fish fests when I wasn’t supposed to.
Lent is also the time that many Italian Catholics really up their game by attending Mass more, sometimes as frequently as everyday, or adopting a good deed such as visiting the sick or volunteering or giving up a vice like chocolate, fast food or rich, indulgent foods. This explains why pancakes are a traditional Fat Tuesday feast food. Older church doctrine decreed that Catholics give up more than meat dishes for Lent and eggs, milk, and even fats were also restricted for the observant. Because Fat Tuesday is the last day until Easter that people could spoil themselves (and in order to use up the dairy products and fats in the home so they wouldn’t go to waste) pancakes soon became part of the last meal before the fast.
Like Pavlov’s dog, my family is always motivated by food, so this meant we were not only giving up meat, but like the Doctrine dictated, inevitably something we all enjoyed like rich, cheesy lasagna on Sundays, pizza or gravy without meat which basically is just sauce. I remember my mother and grandmother always being huge sticklers for all this. They were and are still very religious. My grandmother is such a devout Catholic, there are weeks throughout the year where she still doesn’t eat meat on Fridays. Lent was the perfect time for them to practice their religion, cook the fish dishes they neglected all year and hate on the sinners chomping on Leoni’s deli sandwiches or slice of pepperoni from Tony’s on the corner when Friday rolled around. If there was a stone to be thrown, not only was grandma throwing it, she was gathering the stones and leading the troops.
Now if you are religious, the benefits of following this meatless diet for the 40 days are said to have transcendent effects, helping you feel closer to Jesus and overall make you a better person for your ability to make such sacrifices. For the rest of us who have done it because we were told to, like me, the benefit of being starved of our favorite foods was the feast that followed on Easter Sunday. For my family, our meal always consisted of the things we craved for the past month which would of course be lots of rich, fatty foods and included plenty of antipasti, followed by stuffed shells and of course a main course of delicious roasted lamb with all the fixings and staples like the festive eggs we boiled and colored the night before and hunted that morning, lots of pastries that had these eggs twisted inside of them and of course, tons and tons of chocolate. These delicious treats were of course, delicious, but they also had a lot of meaning behind them. Go figure. The eggs, for example, represent life, fertility, and renewal, all of which are essential symbols of Easter which explains the tradition of dyed eggs, chocolate eggs and the traditional Easter pie, Torta Pasqualina, which is made with eggs, spinach and ricotta and that I enjoyed year after year. The Roasted lamb is a symbol of birth and the Shepherd or Jesus and is the traditional main course. The chocolate eggs and bunnies are not traditionally religious, but are rather a derivative of the eggs made popular by Catholics and made more mainstream for Americans. Everything tastes better in chocolate anyway, so who will argue with that. And then there was the unusual Panettone type pastry that like fruit cake landed on the Easter table each year,but no one really ate or enjoyed, yet it had to be there. Well this strange cake has a name, it is the Colomba di Pasqua, a cousin of the Panettone. I knew it! Both the Panettone and Colomba are made with the same ingredients, but the Colomba is shaped like a dove and is meant to symobolize peace like the dove from the holy trinity comprised of God, Jesus his son and the Holy Spirit.
Now I am not saying I am going to start going to Church every Sunday or start preaching on street corners. If I am going to take this whole re-exploring my faith thing seriously, I’ve decided the best way for me to start is with baby steps beginning with meatless Fridays. When Easter Sunday rolls around, I too, like my Grandma and mother would like for the meal to have more meaning than just an excuse to overeat. My grandmother always sat there proud with a look of such accomplishment on her face, like she had just done something wonderful, and according to her faith and religion she did. I am not sure I will get that same self satisfying feeling my first time around, but I am sure willing to try. I mean, afterall, in English, the word Lent translates as Springtime, a time for birth, growth and new beginnings, so what better time than to start now and starting with my stomach. And thanks to Under the Tuscan Gun, my journey is about to get a whole lot easier and tastier. Check out some of my preferred meal choices recommended by Debi and Gabriele that will help me make it through the next few weeks unstarved and unscathed.
