Last year I picked up a piece of fried chicken and one of my friends slapped it out of my hands. They told me that what I thought was a piece of chicken was actually a piece of fish, and that’s the moment that I remembered it was Lent. For most people it’s not a big deal if they don’t eat meat for one day out the week, namely Fridays, but for me the presence of Fish Fridays has become more of nuisance than anything else. As someone who’s not Catholic I don’t give anything up for Lent, which means that the “no eating meat” rule on Friday doesn’t apply to me. However, I am allergic to some fish so the presence of fish in the caf complicates my meals a little.
Now don’t get me wrong, the caf does a great job at making sure that everything is labeled properly and that there are other options besides just fish, but to my untrained eye a piece of fried fish you could put on your sandwich could easily be confused for a piece of chicken. So really, the main concern for me is what other foods that the fish could potentially be touching. For the most part I would fine if I ate something that a piece of fish touched, otherwise I would get really sick and it would be unfortunate for me. The only thing the Fish Fridays adds to the caf for me is that there is more fish than normal and I just need to avoid the mainline more often than not.
Because my family knows about my allergy we never have fish in my house, and any time I went to a restaurant I would just have to let them that I had an allergy and they would make sure that my food had no chance of cross contamination from fish. Here that’s not the case. What I’ve learned from coming to college and eating at the caf for every meal is how to avoid my allergy in a way that I never had to before. And I’m really thankful for that.