In Detroit, Catholics are allowed to eat muskrat on Fridays during Lent because of historical dispensation from 1700s.

There's another culinary option for Catholics abstaining from meat on Fridays during Lent — for the adventuresome and traditionalists only.

The custom of eating muskrat on Ash Wednesday and Fridays during Lent apparently goes back to the early 1800s, the time of Fr. Gabriel Richard, and when he was ministering to trappers. Legend has it that because trappers and their families were going hungry not eating flesh during Lent, he allowed them to eat muskrat, with the reasoning that the mammal lives in the water. The story varies on just where the dispensation extends; along the River Raisin, along the River Rouge, all of southeast Michigan and Monroe County are among the areas mentioned.

The Archdiocese of Detroit's communications department said there is a standing dispensation for Catholics downriver to eat muskrat on Fridays, although no documentation of the original dispensation could be found. However, a 2002 archdiocesan document on Lenten observances, in addition to outlining the laws of fasting and abstinence, explains that "there is a long-standing permission — dating back to our missionary origins in the 1700s — to permit the consumption of muskrat on days of abstinence, including Fridays of Lent."

continue at Archdiocese of Detroit
Now that's penance!

HT nwarikoo