In the early nineteenth century a dish named Cecils was often concocted by mixing minced meat with bread crumbs and seasonings, rolling the resulting thick paste into small balls, and frying those balls in oil. The fact that Cecils is spelt not only with a capital C but also with what appears to be the vestige of an apostrophe s suggests that the name of the dish was inspired by Cecil’s fast, an expression dating back to the late sixteenth century. At that time, Cecil’s fast was the colloquial name for certain fixed days when the public was forced to eat fish instead of meat. The policy was implemented by William Cecil, an influential minister in Queen Elizabeth’s parliament, whose goal was to foster the nation’s fishing industry. Not surprisingly, the meatless days were not popular with the common folk, who named them after their originator as a means of expressing their displeasure. Two hundred years later, distant memories of Cecil’s fast probably led someone to bestow the name Cecils on a dish which, though not meatless, does attempt to “stretch” the meat by mixing it with bread crumbs.