A Flood of Fish Sandwiches

By Cat Taylor on March 28, 2014

A proper fish sandwich can be a heavenly experience.

A few years ago, I started noticing a spring-time invasion of fish sandwiches at local fast food restaurants. At first, I made no connection to the season and simply thought it was the next big trend in fast food offerings similar to the influx of buffalo wingish foods some time ago. Besides, I couldn’t care less about the reason for fish season when they were offering less expensive value meals that were often tastier than the usual hamburgers and chicken scraping sandwiches. However, when my beloved fish sandwiches started disappearing every summer, I finally became curious enough to ask one of the two-color uniform and baseball cap wearing clerks about the yearly synchronicity of so many fast food restaurants offering fish sandwiches. It’s rare that a kid in high school working behind a fast food counter can make me feel like a moron, but moronic feelings hit me like a hammerhead shark when she told me that it was due to Lent, when one of the most common self-restrictions is for people to swear off all meat except for fish.

As a regular Protestant church attendee, I should have known that. However, I probably didn’t realize that because my feelings are that if something is a bad habit you shouldn’t just swear it off for a season just to go right back to it. Regardless, I like fish sandwiches and, while I’m no pescatarian, I will choose fish when it’s an option over other meats 90% of the time. So, every Lenten season I run the gauntlet of fast food fish at least once before they remove them from the menu once again. This year it occurred to me that I shouldn’t keep my fish adventures to myself. Like music or movie reviews, my taste buds are taking in valuable information that could help more discerning fish-eaters determine where their fast food fish dollars can be best spent. As a result, my service to the internet community will be to provide a fish connoisseur’s take on as many fast food restaurants’ fish offerings as I can get in before they disappear again. The reviews won’t be daily but I’ll get in as many days of fish as I can before they get cast back out to sea. Stay tuned fish-heads.