Supermarkets offer Easter dinner for €5

‘Family meal a form of communion,’ says top critic

WHEN it comes to celebrating Easter, one of the main events is a big meal on Sunday when the family gathers to mark one of the most important days of the year.

Spring has arrived, the chocolate eggs have been delivered by the Easter Bunny to the great delight of the youngest in the house, and then it’s time for a fine meal – and traditionally it’s a leg of roast lamb.

The supermarkets are all promoting good value in their Easter fare, with some offering a feast for four at less than €20 – or €5 each. Aldi and Lidl are both offering half legs of lamb for €8.99, while Tesco’s is €9.05 and SuperValu’s is priced at €10.86.

Irish Daily Mail food critic Tom Doorley welcomed the good value stores are offering this year.

‘It’s remarkable value really and just shows what can be done,’ he said. ‘It depends on what you do with it though; there are plenty of people who can take very good quality meals and murder them – but cooking a roast lamb lunch is well within the capabilities of most people.

‘Provided the quality of the food is up there, it’s actually a very good thing in the sense that it brings the enjoyment of a family meal like that to as wide an audience as possible.

‘And that has to be welcomed if people respect food and the cooking of food, however simply it’s done, and respect it as almost a form of communion, in the sense that sitting around a table with loved ones and feeding them something you have cooked, or the whole family has cooked together.

‘It’s wonderful, and the conversation and the bringing people together – this goes beyond food as mere nutrition or food as fuel, this is food that helps to form bonds and I think that’s absolutely wonderful.

‘You can become very fussy about food quality and food standards and supporting local producers, which is very important,’ he said. ‘But when we cut away all the opinions about food, I think one of its huge roles in life is to bring people together at an occasion.

‘I’m sure there are families who are going to cook this Easter meal and then sit down and eat it in front of the television, and I think that would be rather sad.

‘If you take the Christian story, the Last Supper, it is hugely symbolic, breaking bread together or eating lamb together is more than a snack. It symbolises togetherness and solidarity and communion in that much broader secular sense,’ he said.