SC - Fast days (was: Milk-Down on the Farm)

[david friedman]

Rachel Trigg ( Lady Brighid O Maoilsheachlainn) wrote:
>
>Very briefly, Lent starts with Ash Wednesday
>and is 40 days, not counting Sundays, in length. ... Unfortunately, I do
>not know what the medieval traditions were towards fast days/feasting days.
>
Based on the cookbooks I know best (14th-15th c. England and France) there
were two kinds of fast days (also called fish days): ordinary fast days and
fast days in Lent.  The former include Fridays (this was still the case for
Roman Catholics in my childhood) and often one or two other days a week--I
have seen references to both Wednesdays and Saturdays as fast days--and you
are not allowed to eat mammals or fowl (fish and shellfish are all right).
On fast days in Lent, you are also not allowed to eat milk products,
including butter, and eggs.  I think that at some periods Advent (the
season before Christmas), except for the Sundays, was also a period of
fasting.

Elizabeth/Betty Cook


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