A Matter of Fish

I found it a little hard this year to think about "giving up" in the food department when Lent rolled around this year. It's been my habit for a long while now to try to simplify my life during Lent. I give up most all television, including the news, usually take on some extra discipline like Daily Office or Rosary or some such thing in addition to my Centering Prayer practice. And I try a pretty serious abstinence fast...I give up meat or some such thing. Often I'm pretty purely vegetarian during the season, as "fish on Friday" seems a bit of a cheat to me.

But with all that I've had to modify this year I was a little reluctant to go extreme vegetarian this year. I'm still not sure of the ins and outs of my blood sugar profile; whether the staples of vegetarian protein might be too starchy for my system. And my partner, who's been trying to eat healthy with me, is not to keen on the totally meatless diet. So this year we decided that pescatarianism (or what my friend Lorienne Schwenk calls vegaquarianism) might be the way to go. I've never been much of a home cook for seafood so it's been a grand experiment. While I have not yet ventured into shellfish, I have found cooking fin fish delightful and much easier than I thought. And it's got me thinking about the matter of fish in a biblical sense.

Fish is extremely prevalent in New Testament biblical texts. (It may be more prevalent than I think in the OT but no examples are readily jumping to mind.) There is of course the "loaves and fishes" miracles which appear in all four gospels and are particularly stressed in John. Jesus repeatedly tells his adversaries and even his disciples that if they understood the miracle correctly, so much more would be clear to them. The major disciples where themselves fishermen and fish miracles figure in the call stories of some of them. Then of course, Jesus cooks fish and even eats it for his disciples in one of the resurrection stories. And the icthus, the fish symbol, was the symbol adopted by early Christians during the Roman persecutions. Clearly there is something in the symbolism that is essential.

So I'm thinking about fish...cold, slimy, barely alive seeming and yet a fairly steady staple for people who live near water. Graceful in their habitat but floppy and awkward outside of it. Fish was a major source of protein for poorer people in Palestine, as it remains to this day. Not everyone could afford to kill a lamb, even at Passover, but fish was plentiful, cheap, and nutritious.

So this wonderful everyday quality I think has something to do with the symbolism of fish. Much like bread, which is even more commonly mentioned in the Gospels, fish is an ordinary food item which is life giving. Perhaps Christ is saying that like the fish, he is life giving and abundant. I'm not sure the total connection yet, but I think it's an interesting thing to meditate on.

So fish...yeah...it's delicious. And prepared correctly it's kind of a perfectly made GL meal. The plates above are my dinner from tonight...oven fried bass, oven fried sweet potatoes (much better alternative to white potatoes and more delicious) and curried scented veggies. I'm going to share the recipe in my usual fashion; i.e I approximate measurements and tend to eyeball rather than truly measure. I think it makes are more satisfying result because the food is better suited to my own palette. So here it goes.

Whole Wheat Flour (or any other fine flour such as spelt) enough to cover a plate, seasoned with salt and pepper

A bowl with two eggs, two tablespoons of flour, a table spoon of lowfat mayo (I use smart balance) and some cayenne to taste.

panko breadcrumbs (whole wheat if you can find em...or some other crunchy whole grain...cornmeal works well too) mixed with parsley.

Fish fillets such as cod, perch, tilapia, bass or even catfish

Dredge the fish in the flour mixture, coat it in the egg mixture and then pat it in the bread crumbs. Put it on a baking rack over a baking sheet. Put it in the oven at 425 until done...about 20 minutes...less if the fish is thinner than cod. Serve with sweet potato fries (sweet potatoes cut into wedges and tossed with olive oil, salt pepper and paprika...cinnamon too if you want. They can be baked along with the fish).

Fish recipe found in the American Diabetes Association Comfort Food Cookbook.