Before I get into the meat of today's post, if you're familiar with traveling in New England, Montreal, or the upper Mid-Atlantic (or if you live there, of course), drop me a line or few about tips about what to do, see, eat, or drink while I'm up there during the last week of May and first week of June. I know some of Mickey's and Courtney's readers are New Englanders, so if you accidentally clicked through to me, please help me out here.
This is the time of year for fast food fish sandwiches. I never would have noticed this before I went to college, but these things are usually only available during the season of Lent. I know a couple of fast food places keep their fish sandwich year round, but places like Wendy's, Arby's, Sonic, and Hardee's all fry theirs for a limited time only. The reason I never would have figured this out when I was younger is that I didn't meet someone who would have any reason to observe Lent until college. Baptists and Methodists don't seem to observe it, or at least not the self-sacrificing aspect of it. Primitive Baptists didn't observe any religious holidays within the church so I at least had no first hand experience with it.
I actually observed Orthodox Lent one year with K. It's a bit painful going 40 days with the only meat passing my lips coming from cold-blooded aquatic animals, but I did get an appreciation for the fast food fish sandwich. Some are awful, some are ok, and some are quite good. McDonald's is pretty much crap for everything (except the fruit and walnut salad), so I'm just going to assume the McFish sucks. Arby's and Sonic actually make a pretty tasty sandwich, but the best one by far is the Hardee's fish sandwich. Imagine the typical beer battered fish fillet from the local British bar's fish and chips. Put it in a whole wheat bun with some romaine lettuce and tartar sauce. The fish fillet itself is just of higher quality than most. It's too bad that after this weekend Easter is over and the fish sandwiches start to go away again.
Just don't order the fish sandwich and think you're eating healthier. You're not. Hardee's Fish Supreme is 540 calories and BK's Big Fish has has 650 calories and 32 grams of fat while the Whopper has 670 calories and 39 grams of fat. Sure you're cutting 20 calories, but then you could just get the burger and take a nice brisk walk to make up the difference.
And has anyone noticed that all of the Arby's advertising photos include absurdly thick bun bottoms?
7 comments:
This is totally unrelated, but I'm curious. Why do so many people feel the need to offer compliments when someone uses self-deprecating humor? It's always baffled me when I make a joke at my own expense and someone tells me something good about myself. I'm quite full of myself, thank you. I didn't really need you to bolster my self esteem after that wicked blow it just took from... myself.
I don't know. I like being self-deprecating because I think it's charming in a blog that can otherwise get self-indulgent, but it's not because I'm fishing for compliments.
I really thought this was going to be a post about your New England trip (you know, because of the title and everything) but then it ended up being about fish sandwiches. Huh.
Now I'm ok with the people who offer sarcastic compliments because they're just deprecating me to, but I just feel like they didn't get the joke when they offer sincere one's.
And exactly.
Dude, what the hell? Why would you be the first commenter on your own blog? Just write another post or amend the one that's already there.
Now I'm totally thrown off. I don't eat fast food fish.
I have a friend who worked at a Long John Silvers when he was a younger age. He said nothing filled him with so much rage as Catholic Lenters on Fridays. I can understand, I think.
I am catholic and do not observe the no meat rule, but my mom does. It's weird to me that not eating meat for one day is viewed as some sort of sacrifice.
I'm with Mickey, though. I do not eat fast food fish. Or much of any fast food.
My dad will only eat fish during Lent. Follow me here...he loves fish, fish is available year round. Yet he counts the days until the Knights of Columbus fish fry. Go figure.
Mickey: Yessir, Mr. Blog Police Sir. I'll try to do better next time.
em: I try to avoid fast food too. It typically just makes me feel sick. I don't have an issue with eating it, though, as long as it's the rare occasion. It's been more than a month since the last time I ate fast food until last night. The odd thing is that the fish is typically much higher quality than the rest of the stuff at a fast food place.
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