Nothing fishy about this fast food fish sandwich matchup between McDonald’s and Popeyes

You can buy a Filet-O-Fish all year. Any day you want a Filet-O-Fish, McDonald’s will happily serve you one. But not all fast food restaurants are so generous with their fish sandwiches. For a joint like Popeyes, you gotta wait until we hit Lent, the roughly month and a half before Easter.

During Lent, Catholics traditionally refrain from eating meat on Fridays, which makes a fish sandwich (or, if you’re from Western New York, a fish fry) the perfect meal for the smattering of Fridays during Lent. (While Kurt Cobain said “it’s OK to eat fish because they don’t have any feelings,” the real reason is more likely that back when these rules were created, fish was a food for poor people.)

We’re in the time of year when many fast food restaurants now have a fish sandwich on the menu, if they didn’t already the rest of the year. For this edition of Versus, I’m pitting the all-time classic Filet-O-Fish against the highly related Popeyes Classic Flounder Fish Sandwich.

One sandwich has been around since 1962. The other since 2021. Which one should be your pick over a burger this Friday?