The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Saturday
Take your Easter celebrations outside
On the menu for next weekend, a glorious lunch in the great outdoors. Bring on the good times, writes Xanthe Clay
Hang out the bunting: Easter is all about new life and new beginnings, and it really is a fresh start next weekend as, for the first time in months, we can actually gather around a table again – the garden table.
It might be April, but a meal outdoors is a great plan. Most of us are sick to the back teeth of our own four walls, so if you have a garden then it makes sense to use it as soon as the snowdrops are up.
No garden? Load up the cool box (which works just as well to keep food warm) and make for the park. Yes, it probably will be a bit nippy, but maybe we’ve all been a bit soft. Look at the Swedish, who pile outside as soon as spring is in the air, to forage for spring food and then cook and eat it. Even the famous phrase of fell walker Alfred Wainwright – “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing” – is said to have its origins in Scandinavia.
Remember last year, when walks became
a priority in the warmest spring for years? Tiny pea-green points swelled to carpets of wild garlic on verges in a matter of days. On the local common, I learnt to distinguish patches of darkgreen wild chives from the brighter grass at 40 paces.
Think you can’t forage? I bet you can find nettles. Pick them now (wearing rubber gloves) while they are young, strip off the leaves and then cook to a rich green purée. It’s delicious with lamb and so full of nutrients they ought to be called a superfood, if we didn’t tend to reserve words like this for oddities imported from across the globe.
So when it comes to Easter lunch, lamb may be the sine qua non, but leaves are the seasonal treat.
Our first berries won’t be here for a few weeks, so make the most of citrus and tropical fruit. Cosy up to anyone with an allotment: if you can get your hands on the thinnings of the vegetable patch, these are treasure that can make a tart that will give them the star billing they deserve. Then put on a jumper and take Easter into the open air, because we all need to get out more.