Lent Time
The fortieth day before Easter
Tradition of a time spent – anecdotal memories in Pays-Fort
This was how the time of Lent once came after these ancestral dens.
In our regions, until the years of war 14/18, this period of deprivation and penance was fairly followed in our villages, especially in the peasant world. (*1)
On many tables the meat was on the menu only on Sundays, except in farms and farmhouses or ploughers were entitled to one, sometimes two daily rations, depending on the ploughing carried out.
It would really have been a waste of living if one had eaten or even served, (also in some restaurants) a meat dish during a meal during these forty days of food restriction.
The main food then consisted of salted or dried sea fish (*1), vegetables, eggs, cheese.
For a long time, perhaps already in the Middle Ages, to supply fish (*1) the surrounding population, the owners of ponds used this period to gradually open the drain valve.
Eight, ten days later, although the pond has a small water supply, the said day, a team of professionals completely open the valve and start to collect, using large exhausts in the « Fisheries » (*2) production in the year.
After sorting and placing in large buckets filled with water, some of the fish will be reserved for « Re-poisoning », (reproducers, fry) the other will be weighed and sold on site to fishers in the area as well as to individuals who run several kilometres in the round.
(*1) In the canton many families respected Lent until the 1940s.
(*2) kind of ditch arranged over about twenty meters at the exit of the valve, equipped with 3 or 4 grids placed across, spaced two / three meters, different mesh widths for calibration and harvesting of fish
After the Mardi Gras, it was customary in large farms and families, to buy from his grocer, a salted poop of harengs and a small bundle of twelve pounds of salted and dried cod.
At the main meals one or the other was on the tables after being desalinated
The herring were eaten fried in a mixture of eye oil and « white oil » (peanut), in a large black iron pan placed on the rack rack support above the fireplace or simply on the embers of it.
When to cod, it was cooked with salted butter or « melted » with one or more of the many accompanying vegetables: dried or salted beans, cabbages, rave cabbages, beet, cardoons, topinambour, carrots, potatoes etc. Also in stew, sometimes made of soup or vinaigrette.
Later, the fresh tide, consisting mainly of herring, arrived.
« A fish merchant » toured the countryside and towns of the canton with his horse car, four days a week, on three different circuits, from Toussaint to Easter.
At the sound of his horn he called his many customers. To herring!, fresh herring! ... Well known and valued in Fort Country it was nicknamed « I-Biau Guss ». Some old ones will surely remember! ...
Eggs and the famous omelet with flour, the « Town hall » took with the huge amounts of bread, an important place in this meatless diet.
In the mid-19th century a few large villages of the north Berry began to organize small kermesses or cavalcades to signal the middle of Lent. They were called feasts of mid Lent.
In these times, at Saint-Satur, began a great popular fair, « CARPE ». A party that still lasts these days with his cavalcade.
From its creation until the eve of World War II, this festive day attracted the great crowd and again Lent and fish were associated again.
In the streets of Saint-Satur and Saint-Thibault there were many packs filled with large living carps for sale. Many were the buyers.
What's left today?... A vague memory! ...
Very followed between the two wars in Fort Country and its neighbour Sologne, mid-careerism was marked by great social balls, often by invitation.
City dress required for the gentlemen, long dress for the ladies who each year strenght a new toilet for the occasion.
Often animated by high-quality regional orchestras, composed of five / six musicians, sometimes by a popular star, the most popular were the major dances of Aubigny-sur-Nère, Beaulieu-sur-Loire and Vailly-sur-Sauldre.
Easter by the joy of the resurrection ending penances, several reasons associated the egg (*3) at this party.
The production of the henhouse which had not been affected during those forty days allowed for numerous treats.
(*3) Once during Lent, the church prohibited the consumption of eggs
To add to the eggs a small festive air, the tradition was to color them in bright shades.
In Fort Country, an old custom, « roadway » wanted that on Easter Monday, children would enjoy rolling these colorful hard eggs on grass, with permission to eat them after they burst.
Another reason, symbolizes the renaissance of nature, which takes place with the return of spring.
The birth of the world from an egg was a common belief among Greeks, Celts and Egyptians.
In the southern hemisphere, Ethnies of the ancient Equatorial Africa (Congo, Gabon) carried a true egg worship, being for them a mystery and an image of perfection.
A la « Great moon », almost at the end of the rainy season, shortly before the beginning of the dry season in early April, (abundance of vegetables and wild fruits sipped with water and sun) the rhythmic rotation of the tam-tams began to be heard in bush villages.
Large dances of several consecutive nights were performed up to the dawn around this symbol.
Today what remains of this Catholic tradition? How many people know or still respect Lent?
The present church practically removed the food restrictions that once marked Lent.
Meat abstinence is always recommended on Friday, especially Good Friday. Fasting, as it is practiced today, often involves reducing the amount of food consumed rather than total deprivation.
People choose to abstain from certain foods or pleasures that they especially enjoy, such as chocolate, alcohol or social media.....
In our time, it can be noted that Good Friday is more respected by many people. in families with religious faith.
It must also be recognized that, at the request of their customers, catering, canteens ...... now offer menus and dishes suitable for those who want to.
Extract from the G.M. Archives taken from the association