Oh, the sacrifice of it all

Where else but in Louisiana would an archbishop be asked to rule on whether it is OK        to eat alligator on Friday during Lent?
Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans has given ’gator his blessing and the national bishops’ conference agrees with him. The Catholic News Agency said he’s ruled that alligator is “considered in the fish family,” and can be eaten on days of abstinence.
 Church law requires abstinence from meat on Lenten Fridays and some other days for everyone over 14 years old, unless illness, infirmity, or some other special circumstances requires meat in the diet. According to the U.S. bishops, “Abstinence laws consider that meat comes only from animals such as chickens, cows, sheep or pigs—all of which live on land. Birds are also considered meat. … Fish are a different category of animal. Salt and freshwater species of fish, amphibians, reptiles … and shellfish are permitted.”
Things made from meat, such as chicken broth or meat gravies are also taboo, but the rule allows us to eat such delicacies as crawfish, shrimp, oysters, crabs, frogs and turtles.
That means that in Louisiana we have to make the sacrifice of giving up a hamburger in favor of a loaded oyster poboy, pushing aside a steak in favor of stuffed flounder, or foregoing a pork chop to settle for étouffée.
It makes us wonder whether the rule should be reversed in Louisiana, and that we should be required to give up seafood and eat meat. Does it really hurt if we can eat only seafood gumbo or gumbo d’herbes (without the tasso or andouille) on Friday? Or that we must leave the sausage out of the red beans and rice?
As Judy Walker, food writer for the Times Picayune, put it in a recent web post: “Let’s be real. In south Louisiana, the 40-day period of Lent isn’t a hardship when it comes to meals. Our glorious bounty of seafood makes fish on Fridays an enjoyable tradition.”
I remember looking forward to Lent when I was a kid, because that was when my grandmother made a crawfish bisque that still makes my mouth water when I think of it—and that even though I have the recipe I have never been able to make quite like she did.
And how many of us start taking an active interest in the price of crawfish as the end of Lent draws near, so that we will know how much to assess each cousin for the fixin’s for the traditional Good Friday crawfish boil?
As one devotee explained the custom, Good Friday is one of two days (Ash Wednesday is the other) in the Catholic calendar when the law of fasting (which is different from abstinence) requires adult Catholics to reduce the amount of food eaten. The Church defines fasting as one full meal a day, and two smaller meals. The crawfish boil, according to traditional rationale, constitutes one meal—even if it goes on all day.
Also, counter-intuitively, the regulations say drinking milk will break your fast, but alcoholic beverages do not. Thus, it’s OK to drink a cold beer or two with the crawfish.
You’ll have to talk to theologians about just how penitential drinking beer and eating crawfish boiled with seasoned potatoes and corn on the cob can be.
We won’t even go into the tradition of making Catahoula sweet dough pies on Good Friday. Most of them are filled only with fruit, but it’s no sacrifice to eat them.
You can contact Jim Bradshaw at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com  or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.