Something about Ash Wednesday brings out the child in us.
We’re going to hear the familiar Gospel account of Jesus telling the disciples not to flaunt their praying, almsgiving and fasting to get public attention.
But we’re going to hope Father swishes a good dark gob of ashes on our forehead so we can walk around all day and stimulate questions and conversation. It’s a rare chance to display the mark of our faith, not totally self-serving if it provides an occasional teaching moment. Tell the truth, it makes you feel “shine the light on me” special, right?
Anticipating Lent always leads the mind to focus on food. Our childish concept of fasting is giving up something really delicious. Like chocolate. Or all candy entirely. Or, an even wider circle of self-denial, all desserts. Depth of faith, indeed.
The food fixation kicks in before Ash Wednesday. One last orgy of rich foods is part of the traditional observance of Shrove Tuesday, or Fat Tuesday. The theory is to clear the cupboard of goodies before we settle down to fasting and abstaining. Europeans brought the tradition to the western hemisphere where it has been cranked up to days of excess in New Orleans Mardi Gras and South American Carnival celebrations that are often not rated for children.
Hawaii is lucky that the tradition was brought to the islands by the Portuguese who have a wonderful method of using up eggs and sugar. Long lines will develop Tuesday wherever malassadas are made. You don’t have to be Catholic to observe the Shrove Tuesday ritual.
Another Lenten culinary tradition that’s available to the public at a bakery near you is hot cross buns. It comes from England, this centuries-old recipe of sweet bread marked with the sign of the cross and filled with bits of candied fruit. It’s a bit of bread with a history and superstitions. There was a time when English authorities banned the sale except on Good Friday and after burials; that was during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I when Protestants were suppressing everything Catholic.
One of the superstitions was to hang a hot cross bun on the kitchen wall in the belief that it would protect against fire and ensure that future bread will rise. I can’t imagine that catching on in a climate where only a miracle would keep the bun from attack by ants, roaches and mold. I confess, my faith in miracles falters here.
Are you old enough to have encountered the nursery rhyme “one-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns?” Those prices do not apply in this day and age!
But people do definitely “get” the symbolism of the pastry, said Arlene Zakimi, store manager at Liliha Bakery. Until three years ago, the bakery only rolled out the special rolls for Lent but “people were disappointed when they couldn’t buy hot cross buns the rest of the year, so we acted on customer demand,” Zakimi said. They sell dozens weekly of their lemony frosting version. I view it as a historical expedition to make the rounds of bakeries to indulge in hot cross bun variations. But I know someone who considers biting into the candied fruit a penance and vows to abstain from them, not just this Lent but for her entire adult life.
Friday means clam chowder
As for another Christian food tradition gone global, Zakimi said “Yes, we serve clam chowder on Fridays.” And no, pretty much nobody remembers why.
Whatever the theme of a restaurant, “You’re going to find clam chowder on Fridays,” said Cyrus Goo, owner of Cafe Laufer, which features designer soups. “It’s the one day of the week when we don’t vary the soup selection.” Goo said “the Friday menu was always seafood” during his 20 years experience as a chef in hotel, airline and restaurant kitchens. “It was standard in the industry” and is still widespread even though the religious root has withered.
“Young people today don’t have a clue that the menu was based on a religious practice,” said Goo, who grew up Catholic. As an aside, Goo said, not everyone recognizes they are memorializing a Buddhist religious practice when they eat Jai, a vegetable stew known as monk’s food, that’s a must at Chinese New Year.
Clam chowder on Fridays all year long harks back to a time when the Catholic church rule was to abstain from meat every Friday. It’s a rigorous fasting practice still observed by Orthodox Christians but relaxed by the Catholic Church a few decades ago. We still have the free will to choose self-restraint anytime, that’s the theology. Delicious seafood is abundant and not a penance to consume, that’s the pragmatic reality of modern times.
The sea was the major food source in the islands and that may be part of the reason that the meat abstention rule was waived for island Catholics from the time of the first missionaries.
“I heard it was because the Hawaii mission was so isolated, they didn’t have meat, beef, and on the rare occasion when it was available, they could eat meat,” said Father Louis Yim, diocesan historian. The exemption was specifically permitted from 1827 on by the succession of bishops appointed by Rome to head the mission — Vicariate Apostolic of Hawaii — and continued after Hawaii was designated a diocese in 1941. “It was called the ‘Spanish privilege.’ Spain and Portugal had the privilege for centuries,” Father Yim said.
“As a young priest it was news to me. I asked how come, on the Mainland, all Fridays are meat-less?” Yim recalled.
It was an eye-opening difference for me, too, when I arrived in Hawaii. I got puzzled looks when I nattered on about tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches on Fridays and declined someone’s macaroni and cheese because they put cubed ham in it.
Today, I have Catholic guilt twinges when I order fresh fish on a Lenten Friday; this ahi is like steak. This is suffering, really?
Communal abstinence
In my small kid times in the Midwest, churches staged pancake supper fundraisers on Fridays — no bacon on the side — and you will find similar communal meals offered in Hawaii during Lent. It’s usually a Protestant church that serves up the pancakes, or a simple soup and bread monastic meal, combined with a light program of Biblical study or meditation. They’re ecumenical and welcoming to all comers.
Midwest restaurants go beyond the obligatory clam chowder and offer Friday Fish Fry specials year-round, usually featuring a family-style meal of battered, formerly frozen cod, haddock or catfish. People will drive past a dozen places to get to their favorite fish fry location on the other side of town.
Two Windward parishes have taken on the Midwest tradition. The Knights of Columbus will present Friday Fish Fry specials at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Kailua on March 7 and St. John Vianney Parish on March 28. Better call first to see if tickets are still available. They were going like, well, hotcakes. (See story on page 8)
These fat-filled thoughts of impending Lent are lean on the spiritual side. I guess I’ve been childishly concentrating on the physical things I need to put aside in order to begin the 40-day journey as an adult.
If you can’t be there for Wednesday Mass, you’ll find the menu for a fulfilling Lent in the Gospel of St. Matthew starting at chapter 6. What Jesus told the disciples includes:
“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them.
“But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
“When you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites. They neglect their appearance so that they may appear to others to be fasting.
“But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face so that you may not appear to be fasting except to your Father who is hidden. And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.”
