There is a peculiar species of modern journalism that exists solely to inform the British public that everything they have always enjoyed is, in fact, a moral and dietary catastrophe. The latest specimen arrives courtesy of a newspaper that once knew better, solemnly declaring the traditional Sunday roast 'terrible' and in urgent need of an overhaul. Expensive, time-consuming, unhealthy: the usual charges are laid out with the air of a coroner examining a corpse that has had the impertinence to go on living. One is left with the distinct impression that the only proper British meal would be a carefully portioned kale smoothie consumed in silence while contemplating one’s carbon footprint.
Permit me a right of reply, there is nothing greater, nothing more civilising, nothing more profoundly English than a traditional Sunday family roast. It begins, as all true rituals must, with the potatoes. Not one variety, mind you, but two: mash for the soft-hearted, roast for those who understand that a potato’s highest destiny is to be transformed into something golden, crisp, and faintly indecent. Alongside them march the roast carrots and parsnips, their natural sweetness coaxed out by heat and fat until they become the sort of vegetables that even children will tolerate. Cauliflower cheese may put in an appearance if the household is feeling particularly luxurious, or particularly determined to ensure that every last member of the family will spend the afternoon in a state of gentle torpor. The meat itself—beef, lamb, chicken, or whatever the butcher has managed to persuade you is still affordable—is secondary only in the sense that gravy is the true sovereign. Lashings of it. Homemade Yorkshire puddings, risen to the height of small cathedrals, stand ready to receive the gravy like communicants at an altar.
Afterwards comes the pudding: a homemade fruit crumble or pie, its pastry or topping bearing the proud scars of domestic improvisation, served with custard for the stout-hearted and ice cream for the lightweights who still believe dessert should be cold. All of this is washed down with white or red wine according to the season and the cook’s remaining patience, possibly a glass of brandy for those who have earned it, and absolutely—without apology or modern self-consciousness—a cigar or two. The children will by this point have produced at least one tantrum and one storming-off. These are not interruptions to the proceedings; they are part of the liturgy.
Translated into the language of ordinary human feeling, it means “I love you.” It is one of the last remaining institutions in which love is expressed not through declarations or carefully curated experiences, but through the sheer, unapologetic abundance of food, noise, and residual irritation. The critics who now propose its overhaul appear to believe that affection is best demonstrated by calorie counts, timed cooking sessions, and the substitution of avocado for peas. They have mistaken the point entirely.
Modern “vegan” cuisine is a bland, joyless procession of beige textures and apologetic flavours, endlessly recycled into the same uninspired plates of mush, cardboard, and self-congratulation. It is not food so much as ideology on a plate: deliberately stripped of richness, depth, and pleasure, then forced upon the rest of us by humourless zealots whose primary talent is moral preening rather than cooking. These people, steeped in a far-left agenda that treats traditional eating as a political crime, insist we celebrate their sterile inventions while sneering at anyone who still prefers actual taste, culture, and satisfaction.
The Sunday roast does not require an overhaul. What requires an overhaul is the attitude that finds the whole business faintly embarrassing—too messy, too caloric, too redolent of a time when families still gathered without first checking whether the occasion had been sufficiently optimised. The roast has survived wars, rationing, and the invention of the microwave. It will survive the current bout of journalistic hand-wringing as well. All it asks in return is that we continue to sit down, eat too much, argue about the washing-up, and understand, without needing to say so, that this is how certain civilisations have always said they care.