Fasting is one full meal and two small meals.
Abstinence means eating no meat.
Nothing wrong with a Fish Fry if you only have two other light meals on Ash Wednesday.
Ash Wednesday has always been a solemn day to me - Fish Fry doesn’t sound solemn to me. Just the way my family observed it - nothing else.
Friday AFTER Ash Wednesday was always the first one - big gathering of the congregation after Stations of the Cross.
The idea of Pancake Day was to use up the milk and eggs in the house before Lent because in the past they weren’t supposed to be eaten.
I remember this rhyme from childhood:
Pancake Day is a very happy day,
If we don’t have a holiday we’ll all run away,
Where shall we run, up High Lane,
And here comes the teacher with a great big cane!