Why do we eat fish on Good Friday? Easter tradition religious origins, is it meat - does fish and chips count?

While you might associate Easter with chocolate, many will be taking a trip down to their local chippy on Good Friday to get their hands on some fish and chips.

Well, Good Friday is the start of Easter, a Christian festival, and traditionally people avoid eating meats like pork, beef or poultry and fish is looked on more favourably to eat.

This year, Good Friday falls on 29 March 2024, and while treats like hot cross buns and chocolate eggs may take centre stage this weekend, many people in the UK will still choose to eat fish on Friday.

The reason for this is rooted in religion, Christians believe Jesus sacrificed his own flesh on Good Friday and so abstaining from eating meat is a way of showing respect on the day he was killed.

Also, fish were used by early Christians as a way of identifying themselves and for signposting places where they could meet.

Some Catholics even abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and each Friday of Lent and eating fish is seen as acceptable because it is considered a different kind of flesh to that on the land.

Fish was also used in Jesus’ teachings in the Gospel of John, and Christians believe he fed 5000 hungry people with only two fish and five loaves of bread.

These days, eating fish on Good Friday has become a tradition for a lot of people, even if they aren’t religious. So you can expect to see crowds flocking to the chip shops this coming bank holiday weekend.