The mandated
abstinence from meat by Roman Catholics during Advent and Lent [×] was so widely practiced that it supported commercial fisheries and salting or canning industries for fish of the herring family, e.g.
sardines and
pilchards, for centuries. But the last such U.S. cannery, in
Maine, closed in 2010 [
#], and only 1 survives anywhere in Anglophone North America: On the Bay of Fundy in far-S.W.
New Brunswick, thus historic Acadia (Atlantic coast of Canada). [
##]
That's not to overlook the fact that the fisheries and canneries have been subjected to devastating surprises about the fishes'
distribution and abundance, thus unexpectedly unpleasant trends in their
harvestable surplus. But the causes aren't as clear-cut as certain fishery-hostile "environmental"-advocacy organizations would have people believe and treat as "blame". Scarce few readers will be aware that those organizations routinely, um, fail to identify reductions in catch caused by fishing bans in regulations or treaties, including self-righteous bans in new marine "sanctuaries" or "reserves" for which they were among the primary agitators.
"Pick of the fleet, Sardine Carriers", Eastport (Washington Co.) Me., U.S.A. Public-domain (per U.S. law) postcard,
ca. 1930--1945, published by Tichnor Bros. (num. 74647), available as image with incredibly obnoxiously long needlessly redundant URL via
Wikimedia Commons.
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Note ×:
Odd! Here it's the Lenten Ember Saturday, but nothing new related to Lent (e.g., recipes) has yet appeared in
CathInfo's "
Health and Nutrition" (sub)forum (
q.v.; but
please don't reply to me by posting "Health and Nutrition" topics here in the "
General Discussion" (sub)forum).
Note
#: Stinson Seafood (Prospect Harbor, Me.), producers of "Beach Cliff" products. "Last US sardine cans being packed in Maine" (Apr. 14, 2010 9:13 AM). <
https://www.metafilter.com/91033/Last-US-sardine-cans-being-packed-in-Maine>.
Note
##: <
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sardines_as_food>. According to Web surfing that I probably did in Lent or Advent 2018, the named "Connors Brothers" were immigrants from western more-or-less-coastal
Ireland, so I assume that they were Roman Catholic (no URL available at hand right now, but likely the cannery Web site
(in) illo tempore). Packaging on recent purchases identifies "Bumble Bee Seafoods" (San Diego, Cal.) as the current "distribut[or]" not only of the "Brunswick" brand, but also of the "Beach Cliff" brand, the latter now labelled "Product of Canada" (
hmmm).