How does religion in France influence the food there?
When the French were mostly Christians they followed the prescriptions of the church: fish on Fridays, fasting or cutting out rich foods in Lent and only eating special foods like pancakes on Shrove Tuesday or Mid Lent. Certain regions have specialities which are made around the time of particular religious occasions like Saint Nicolas’ day on the 6th December, or traditional foods on Christmas day but these are more traditional customs than dictates from the church. Nowadays that there is no particular hardship in eating fish this is eaten any day, and relatively few people change their diet for Lent. Now that the numbers of Muslims have grown considerably in France, some of these observe Islamic customs such as Ramadan, Halal meat and no pork based products. There are relatively few practicing Jews in France and whilst some may follow traditional Jewish religious customs , in general they eat the same diet as the rest of the nation with the exception of pork meat which is taboo. In t
