Every year when fasting and abstinence from meat become the communal penance you are sure to hear remarks about delicious seafood and how this is not much of a penance. This always sets my eyes rolling. There is no way to create a common practice to eat UNflavorful foods (though the Eastern Christians come close by eliminating all fats and all animals that seem to have bones in them including fish). But fasting and abstinence (which is fasting from a particular food group or several food groups) is not about the flavor of the food.
The Church has an ancient tradition of fasting. Jesus Himself had said: "When the bridegroom [Jesus Himself] is taken from them, then they [his disciples] will fast" (Luke 5:35. In the Apostolic era there were two days of fasting every week on Wednesday and Friday. These days were chosen to distinguish the Christians from the Jews who fasted on Mondays and Thursdays. Fasting for Lent and Advent and around certain major feast days came later.
Certainly, people who go out of their way to feast on delicacies on Fridays are missing a big opportunity for growth, though there may be good reasons for creating a special meal on one or another occasion.
We don't have to reflect too hard to realize that restricting one's diet on purpose is something that only the somewhat comfortable can do. Even now, meat is a luxury food item in many parts of the world. As soon as the average income goes up in an area, so does meat consumption. It's a sociological given that drives environmentalists and vegan evangelists crazy. So think of the situation centuries ago: Lenten rules about not eating meat on Friday would have only applied in real life to the rich! The middle-class would have rarely tasted meat (perhaps on a great feast day). And the poor? Fish and sea creatures, on the other hand, might have been more available (as long as the local duke did not lay claim to all that swam in the rivers). In other words, the "fish on Friday" practice meant that one day a week the Lord of the Manor came one notch closer to the people of his land, who experienced no change of diet (because they had nothing else to eat!).
Since the days of the Fathers of the Church, the money that would have been spent on food has been, through fasting, changed into alms for the poor; instead of feeding oneself, the Christian who fasted is able to provide for someone else. (That still works.) And fasting frees up time that would have been spent at the table for prayer! So the great Lenten triad of prayer, fasting, and works of mercy are linked even in the practical realm.
Whether we are fasting/abstaining during Lent, or practicing the usual (if barely discernible) Eucharistic fast from all food and drink (but water) for an hour, fasting is meant to help us hunger for true food, “food that the Son of Man will give you, for on him the Father has set his seal; food that will nourish you for eternal life,” the only true food. That's not something we can provide ourselves!
Fasting reminds us that no matter how well-supplied our table is, we can't really feed ourselves for eternal life. Fasting tells us, in a literally visceral way, that what we really need we can't get unless we go to Jesus. Thankfully, we have forty days of Lent to help us absorb the lesson!
