Why do so many families across the north eat fish on Good Friday?

We had a look at why so many people across the UK will be tucking into fish and chips today and where the tradition comes from.

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to Manchester World. My name's Theo Hewson-Betz and first things first, happy Easter.

00:05Now as I'm filming this, it's Good Friday, so this evening's dinner is going to be made up of fish and chips.

00:11Now this has been a habit in my family on Good Friday since I was a young lad,

00:15and while I understand that it had something to do with Christianity,

00:18it occurred to me earlier that I had no real understanding of why the rule existed and what the purpose was.

00:23So let's have a quick look back through time.

00:25Now this is a historically Christian tradition, typically associated with the Catholic faith more than any other,

00:31and the habit of eating fish on a Friday actually came about back in the second century of Christianity.

00:36Meat was such a vital and important part of the diet that each Friday people would give up meat and turn to fish or vegetables

00:41in order to remind themselves of Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, which obviously came about on Good Friday.

00:47Now a few centuries later, Lent came into existence and took on much more of the responsibility

00:51of allowing Christians to sacrifice things that are important to them and encouraging abstinence in certain things.

00:57This is in much the same way that you might give up chocolate for Lent.

01:00Now it took some time, but eventually some of the leaders in the Catholic Church decided that there was too much of an emphasis

01:05on sacrifice and sin, with a decent proportion of people believing that breaking Friday abstinence

01:10was a sin substantial enough to land people in hell.

01:13With that in mind, fasting was preserved on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday,

01:16which limited the amount of meals that people would have,

01:18and abstaining from meat was maintained on Fridays through Lent.

01:21Over time, most families who stick to the tradition are focused more on today, Good Friday,

01:25for maintaining their abstinence, and many families, religious or not,

01:28will find themselves having a delightful chippy tea tonight.

01:31Now here in the north of England, we do fish and chips really well,

01:33and there are tons of great places in Manchester to pick up your chippy tea.

01:37I'm going to go to Wright, grab some fish, chips, and we're in the north.

01:41Gravy.

01:42That's all for now. Follow Manchester World for more, and we'll see you again next time.