Why do people eat fish on Good Friday?

As the Easter weekend approaches, it signals a time for feasting and celebrating with family and friends.

Most people associate Easter with eating chocolate eggs, but there’s another culinary tradition, dating back to biblical times.

The Christian festival begins on Good Friday, when it’s tradition to eat fish, as opposed to meat, such as beef, pork or poultry.

If fish is on the menu, here’s what you need to know about where the practice originates from.

Why do people eat fish on Good Friday?

As Jesus sacrificed his own flesh on Good Friday, traditionally Catholics abstain from eating meaty flesh on this day.

Instead, fish is considered a more favourable type of animal product to eat.

The medieval church decreed that the meat of warm-blood animals shouldn’t be eaten on Fridays, hence the replacement of fish instead.

Other types of Christians believe that eating fish on Good Friday symbolises the day in the Bible that Jesus was killed by the Romans.

Fish were also used as sign by early Christians to identify themselves, for example for marking out and recognising designated meeting places.

It was known as the ichthus, and used alongside the cross of Jesus Christ in the early Christian community.

As some of Jesus’ disciples were also fishermen, fish is seen as a good substitute to meat on Good Friday, as it’s regulary referenced in accounts of the son of God’s life.

In Jesus’ time, fish was viewed as an easily accessible, everyday item of food - and catching fish was much easier than slaughtering an animal or going hunting.

However, in the 1960s, the Pope intervened and altered the ruling.

He said it could be modified depending on a person’s economic status, so eating fish on Good Friday is just a guideline, as opposed to the rule.

Nowadays eating fish and chips on Good Friday has become a tradition, even for those who aren’t religious.

So if you’re heading to your local chippy on the bank holiday, be prepared for a queue.