GOOD Friday is one of the biggest days of the year for fish sellers, and last week was no exception. At one Bright takeaway the queue was stretching down the street and some had to endure a three-hour wait for the traditional fish and chips, according to staff member and former owner Irene Baris. She said it was one of the busiest Good Fridays in her 28 years in the takeaway business. “A lot of people were ordering for four or five families in one go,” she said. “It pushes the other people's orders back and you've got to catch up.” She estimated around 80 per cent of the orders were for seafood, with the other 20 per cent for halal snack packs, burgers and other products. “A few years back it was mainly fish and chips,” she said. “But now you have people that are not religious, you get people that don't even celebrate Easter.” Seafood retailer Jenny Hughes was busy on Myrtleford’s Standish Street last Wednesday selling fish from a trailer that she takes around the North East. When it comes to seafood sales, she said Good Friday isn’t as big as Christmas due to the popularity of prawns and oysters in December, but fish takes centre stage at Easter. “Salmon, flathead tails, gummy flake – they’re probably our biggest sellers most of the year round,” she said. At holiday times the fish prices can go up, she said, as fishers hold back the product a couple of days because they know demand will increase. “Fishermen hold it back at the beginning of the week to get a better price, and then come the end of the week if they've got fish left over, they'll drop the price to the suppliers,” she said. As to why fish is so popular on Good Friday, Ms Hughes said the Catholic practice has become common tradition even for those who aren’t religious. She herself was brought up a Catholic, and said red meat was not to be eaten on Fridays in Lent, the 40-day period of fasting and abstinence before Easter. Reverend Lindell Gibson from the Bright Uniting Church recalled an old joke that a former pope had ownership in a fishing company and to increase business he decreed that Christians should eat fish on Friday. She said some Christians eschew red meat in remembrance of the blood of Jesus Christ that is said to have been shed on Good Friday, but she personally doesn’t insist on eating fish, instead choosing to eat and live simply for the day. “I was probably brought up to understand fish was the simple person's food and Friday wasn't a day for celebrating - it's a day to live simply and reflect, so for me personally, that's what it's about,” she said. Mother Moira Evers said Friday was traditionally a day of fasting and abstinence to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. “The whole concept of eating fish once a week was to sacrifice meat, so to give up something that you really enjoy,” she said. Mother Moira also pointed out the nutritional benefits of eating fish. “We should all eat fish once a week nowadays, so why not make it Fridays?” she said.
