I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Lent has come and, to any good medieval culinary historian, Lent is a time to reflect on what our medieval ancestors did during Lent. To a first approximation, what they did was give up meat, dairy and eggs. And ate fish. Quite a lot of fish, it seems. Le Ménagier de Paris, written about 1390, includes several Lenten menus, in multiple courses, with six or more different types of fish and seafood in each menu. (Le Ménagier is available in several modern editions, including this one.)

Most years, my wife and keep something which resembles medieval Lent in the modern world. That is to say, we do adhere to no meat, dairy and eggs (except on feast days, of course), but we also take advantage of soy milk, tofu and a wider variety of vegetables than would have been available to our 14th century Parisian householder. We have a few standard dishes that we adapt to Lent and some that we hardly ever eat outside of Lent.

We're fond of Alton Brown's sardine and avocado sandwich. Although I make it with one tin of sardines and one avocado, use lemon juice instead of vinegar, and mash the avocado with the sardines to make a sort of spread.

In the last week, we've also had vegan burritos, tilapia with capers, and pasta with red sauce and commercial vegetarian sausage. The sauce is the one used for my gnocchi and calamari recipe, which would itself be good for Lent, as long as you didn't top it with cheese.

Vegan Burritos

• 1/2 lb firm tofu
• 1 onion
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 can refried beans (take care to make sure they don't have lard in them)
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 3-4 tsp chile powder (I use half ancho and half chipotle)
• flour tortillas
• salsa
• onions, tomatoes, lettuce and the like for topping
• olive oil

I usually heat the tortillas by simply placing them on top of the stuff in the skillet for a minute before I load them with the filling. Serve with salsa and your other favorite toppings. Except cheese or sour cream, it's Lent after all.

Tilapia with lemon and capers

• 2 tilapia filets
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1/2 cup capers
• salt and pepper
• olive oil

Serve with the sauce over pasta, we prefer orzo here. Sautéed greens go well with this dish.