Some people might think the Friday Night Fish Fry during Lent is a Minnesota thing.
Sorry to disappoint you.
No.
It’s a Catholic thing. But you don’t have to know the Rosary frontwards and backwards — or know how to genuflect without glancing around to see if everyone else is doing it first — to enjoy it.
If you were raised Catholic, you already understand the mood. There is always a faint sense that you might be doing something slightly wrong. Even when you’re not. Especially when you’re not.
The whole operation began as a modest act of sacrifice. During Lent, Catholics abstain from meat on Fridays — a small weekly nod to discipline, reflection and spiritual restraint. A pause. A reminder. A spiritual tune-up in the middle of winter.
As a child, I understood Lent primarily as the season when hamburgers became illegal on Fridays and guilt became recreational. You gave something up. Candy. Pop. Joy. And then you tried not to brag about how well you were suffering.
Somewhere along the way, however, restraint met a deep fryer.
Fish became the obvious substitute. No beef. No chicken. No pork. Fine. We’ll have cod. Churches began hosting simple communal meals. Modest. Practical. Pious. Folding tables. Coffee strong enough to put hair on your soul.
And then the Midwest happened.
Now, Wisconsin will yell the loudest about it. They’ve practically trademarked the phrase. In that state, a Friday Fish Fry is less a meal and more a constitutional right. You don’t ask if there’s a fish fry. You ask where.
But Minnesota? Minnesota quietly turned it into something else.
Here, it’s less about sacrifice and more about deep-fried fellowship.
Yes, technically we’re abstaining from meat.
But we are also battering walleye, frying cod, stacking paper plates two thick for structural integrity, and forming lines that suggest the promise of tartar sauce has very real drawing power. You’ll hear phrases like “all-you-can-eat” spoken with a reverence normally reserved for hymnals.
In many towns, Lent doesn’t feel somber.
It feels organized.
Legion halls and VFWs put their menus on letterboards like prizefighters announcing a title bout. Knights of Columbus members in aprons moving with military precision. There are rumors about who has the best batter this year. People speak in hushed tones about “last Friday’s crowd,” as if attendance alone were a virtue.
And the lines.
Early in the Lenten season — when winter still has authority and optimism is mostly theoretical — Minnesotans will stand outside in temperatures normally reserved for a Will Steger expedition. Parkas zipped to the chin. Boots anchored on icy sidewalks. Breath rising like incense.
No one complains.
Suffering, after all, is on theme.
Because inside?
Cod.
Or walleye. Or perch.
Everyone has their favorite. Cod people are loyal. Walleye people are evangelical. Perch people will quietly tell you it’s underrated.
During Lent, flaky takes on a whole new meaning.
It’s no longer about texture.
It’s about virtue.
You are not indulging. You are observing. Participating in a centuries-old tradition … that just happens to include French fries, coleslaw in quantities rivaling the Great Minnesota Get-Together, and unlimited refills of something orange and carbonated.
Even Lutherans show up. Quietly. Respectfully. Possibly with Tupperware. No one asks questions. We are ecumenical when batter is involved.
Somewhere in the kitchen, there is always someone’s uncle managing the fryer like it’s a sacred calling. He has opinions about oil temperature. He does not trust newcomers near the baskets. He refers to haddock as if it were an old friend.
The theology may be Roman.
The oil temperature is aggressively Minnesotan.
Lent is forty days of sacrifice. Forty days of reflection. Forty days of giving something up.
But only six Fridays.
Six Fridays to stand in a Legion or VFW hall that smells faintly of fryer oil and brewed coffee.
Six Fridays to debate cod versus walleye like it’s a matter of doctrine.
Six Fridays to practice abstinence — from meat, at least — while exercising impressive commitment to batter.
A season meant for restraint has somehow become six very well-organized evenings of abundance.
Forty days of reflection.
Six Fridays of deep-fried fellowship.
Not indulgence exactly.
Though if you go back for seconds, you may feel compelled to mention it quietly in confession to Father O’Shea.
Just community … served hot, with tartar sauce.
Mark Glende, Rosemount, is an elementary school custodian. “I write about real-life stories with a slight twist of humor,” he says. “I’m not smart enough to make this stuff up.”
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