Here we have the fundamental nature of fasting, as it was understood at around the turn of the 20th century: fasting limits food intake to one meal a day and the timing of this meal is not a matter of grave sin. How much could a person eat at this meal? This was never stated in the law of the Church. (Moral theologians tended to state that a full meal was 32 ounces.)
As this change in the time of the “breakfast” took place, people began to also have a small meal in the evening. This “collation”, as it was called, was first just some wine and a bit of bread. Drinking only wine might have some unwanted effects so, therefore, some bread was also allowed. By the time of the 16th century, it was customary to have fruit and even other food, as long as the total quantity did not exceed five…six…seven…eight ounces. According to St. Alphonsus (1770), eight ounces was seen as the maximum amount. (This would be 1/4 of a full, 32 ounce meal). Once again, however, local practice was variable. There was no legislated, universal norm.
During the next 75 years or so, people began to have some food even in the morning. This “frustulum”. as it was called, was allowed by “the Vatican” (the Sacred Penitentiary, to be specific) in an 1843 response which said: “Those who in the morning on fast days take a small quantity of coffee or chocolate with a piece of bread should not be disturbed.” “Chocolate”, in this context ("…coffee or chocolate…") refers to a chocolate drink, not a big chunk of chocolate. Over time, it was said that this little snack was supposed to consist of no more than two ounces of food but some authors stated that people are allowed to eat as much as they truly need in order to carry out their duties. Once again, there was no legislation from the Holy See which determined how much could be eaten in these “snacks.” In any case, I doubt people had a scale to measure their food intake.
In 1891, the Baltimore Catechism defined a fast days as: “days on which we are allowed but one full meal” (q. 1337). Question 1338 asked whether or not it is “permitted on fast days to take any food besides the one full meal” and said that it
is permitted “to maintain strength, according to each one’s needs. But together these two meatless meals should not equal another full meal.” (This should sound familiar since it is how we (at least in the USA) often define what it means to fast.)
In the 1917 Code, we can see a universal law that formally allows both a morning and evening “snack”: “The law of fasting ordains that only one full meal a day be taken, but does not forbid a small amount of food in the morning and in the evening. As regards the kind of food, and the amount, that may be taken, the approved customs of one’s locality are to be observed” (canon
1251). This canon went on to say that the “main meal” could be taken in the evening and the “collation” at noon.
