Be A Good Egg!

Today is Easter Sunday which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus and that is the reason we have Easter Eggs. 

Eggs have long been a symbol of fertility and new life in many customs and cultures. Christians adopted the egg as it is a reminder that Jesus rose from the tomb (symbolised by the empty egg shell) and brought new life. 

During Lent people would abstain from eating eggs but the fast was broken on Easter Sunday. The eggs would have been hard boiled to preserve them and so the tradition of decorating them with dyes, paints and decorations began during the middle ages. After the austerity of Lent this led to competitions for the best Easter Egg and games such as egg rolling and the Easter Egg Hunt.

Chocolate eggs were made during the 19th century in France and Germany but it was here in the UK that the Cadbury family made them available in the 1870s. They were initially made of dark chocolate but in 1905 the first milk chocolate egg appeared. Nowadays there is a glut of Easter Eggs lining the shelves of every supermarket and confectioner, even before the pine needles of the Christmas tree have had time to drop!

Chocolate aside, are eggs acceptable as part of the vegetarian diet? Personally, I do eat eggs, meaning I am a lacto-ovo vegetarian as I also eat dairy products. There is an argument that eating eggs destroys a developing embryo but as most egg farmers keep roosters apart from egg-laying hens, they have very little chance of becoming fertilized and will, therefore, never produce. For me, eggs and dairy are a big part of my diet. On a Jamie Oliver Ministry of Food course the first lesson taught me how to cook the perfect poached egg and I always enjoy a soft boiled (tap-down or dippy in my family) egg with toast soldiers. Another favourite is eggy-bread (also known as witches toast). When my twin niece and nephew were very young they used to come and stay with me. My niece loved eggs whilst her brother was a pizza-eater. I would cook separate teas for them whilst they chanted "pizza's best", "eggs are best" in turn.

Whether you're eating real eggs or chocolate ones on Easter Sunday - enjoy! My tip would be to keep your chocolate ones somewhere safe. We once got home from an Easter skiing trip to find a scattering of brightly coloured foil paper and nibbled eggs ... mice love chocolate too!

What does Holy Week hold?

Today is Palm Sunday; the start of Holy Week. This week sees Lent drawing to a close. I gave up sweets this year and have not particularly found it a hardship as I have still been allowed other sweet treats. The year I gave up chocolate was the hardest, with other foods eaten to excess by way of compensation during the six weeks of Lent and a huge Easter Egg as reward when I crossed the finish line!

With Maundy Thursday celebrating the Last Supper, it got me thinking about what my ideal meal would be were it the last thing I ever ate. Whilst I enjoy food, I eat to live rather than live to eat and have very few favourite or memorable meals. Prisoners on Death Row are asked what last meal they would like and, dependent upon which State they are incarcerted in, may or may not be granted it. It's hard to imagine being in that situation. Perhaps an easier question would be to ask what meal people would choose if they returned from a desert island or, indeed, the jungle on I'm a Celebrity ... Interestingly on that programme, when only given the bare essentials of rice and beans, contestants generally crave salty, spicy and sweet foods. Flavour, it would seem, is more important than quantity.

My fairly humble meal would be as follows:-

Caprese salad (made with the finest & freshest ingredients)

Asparagus, broad bean, pea & goats cheese risotto (made with the finest & freshest ingredients)

Warm chocolate brownie with ice cream (made with the finest & freshest ingredients)

Naturally they would each have to be prepared and cooked to perfection with just the right seasoning, dressing and ooziness. At the end of the meal I would say "that was delicious" and then, as my childhood family tradition dictated, would have to spell that word ... D E L I C I O U S ! Incidentally, we weren't part of a spelling bee; Delicious was the only word we regularly spelt out loud!

We have also reached British Summer Time, when civil time in the UK is advanced 1 hour forward of Greenwich Mean Time. This will mean lighter evenings and, although the mornings will be darker to start with, days will stretch. The prospect of summer with countryside picnics, seaside barbecues and candlelit outdoor dining is enough to gladden the heart of even the grumpiest souls.

The week ahead will, as well as the Easter festivities, include April Fools Day. Ours is a family of jokers and wind-up merchants and one of our best tricks was played on my son who is very car-proud. We informed him that we had noticed a small chip on his windscreen. He rushed out to find exactly that; a frozen french fry placed strategically near his wipers! I wonder what word he was thinking of spelling ...

The Wild Side of Life!

It is with regret and repulsion that I have to report that my much loved dog, Max, ate a whole squirrel this week. He crept out of the undergrowth crunching small bones before I saw the bushy tail disappear down his throat - ew. In the six years I've had him he has dispatched and buried 2 rabbits without eating them so this latest escapade came as a bit of a shock. It has lead to the realisation that I need to monitor which television shows he watches.

Looking back on the week, he was in the room when Jamie and Jimmy's Friday Night Feast was aired. Jimmy Doherty suggested that grey squirrels were a pest and harmed much of the countryside but, on the plus side, could in fact be eaten! The boys then went on to show various means of preparing, cooking and eating them.

This is nothing new as up and down the country (and abroad), people are holding roadkill dinners, parties and barbecues. Whilst in the USA this may constitute moose, deer, antelope and elk, in the UK it's more likely to be rabbit, pigeon, pheasant and, of course, squirrel. There are people who will eat any meat and the more the merrier.  The one that really turns my stomach is the River Cottage 10 bird roast where birds, in order of size, are stuffed one inside the other - so wrong.

Before becoming vegetarian I worked for a Consultant who would hold a supper party for all the junior doctors as they left and moved on to a new post. He lived in a lovely house in the countryside and supper would always be rabbit stew. Even then I would struggle to eat it with images of Peter Rabbit and Squirrel Nutkin flashing through my mind.

From now on the only cookery programme my dog will be allowed to watch is The Bake Off. At least they show a cute little squirrel in a beautiful setting without a chef sharpening his knives in the background. Today is the first Sunday of Lent and Max is definitely giving up squirrel and, hopefully, horse poo which he is also quite partial to ...

Sweet Treats!

Forty-four years ago today; 15th February 1971, the UK was decimalised! I would have been eight years old then and vividly remember going to the local shops with my sister. I bought a packet of cherry Tunes and the shop keeper asked if I would like my change in new money or old. New of course! It was very exciting 'though I can only hope that I had a bad cold at the time, buying something as boring as Tunes! In those days I would have had the choice of Opal Fruits to make my mouth water, a finger of Fudge which was just enough, a Big One which stuck out a mile or Fruit Pastills which I would have had to put down or pass around. I would have known all this just by watching TV. Equally, I could have bought Trebor Mints which were a minty bit stronger and stuck them up somewhere to make them last a bit longer! I would have known this from the songs in the school playground!

In those days my sister and I each chose just one chocolate treat every Saturday. Hers would, invariably, be a Picnic and mine a Crunchie. Nowadays there is a vast array of sweets and chocolates available, 'though rarely advertised on television, presumably for health reasons. I have a very sweet tooth with a particular fondness for chocolate. So much so, in fact, that when doing a supermarket shop when my own children were younger, the checkout girl asked if I was having a party! Being the advertising man's dream that I am, I had simply stocked up on everything that was on offer! BOGOF was my mantra.

This week sees the start of Lent hot on the heels of Pancake Tuesday. I once gave up pop 'n' sweets 'n' crisps 'n' buns for Lent but made (and ate) copious trays of flapjack as a substitute. This year I aim to give up sweets although Marks and Spencers have brought out a range of vegetarian jelly sweets using pea protein rather than animal gelatine. This is good news for Vegetarians who generally have to avoid jelly sweets. However, the names of the sweets do rankle a little - Percy PIGS and Colin the CATERPILLAR!