Sunday Lunch

I was at the Orpington Liberal Club earlier today, for one of their periodic roast lunches. They are always popular events, and the conversation is both lively and long. This is how it should be. All too often in Britain, eating is seen as an animal necessity — a sandwich snatched at one’s office desk, or a late-night kebab or take-away Chinese — rather than a proper sit-down meal in which the inter-action with family, friends or colleagues is as important as the food. One of the things I loved about living in Brussels in the 1970s was the civilised lunches, which often actually helped work, as well as leaving one a happier human being.

By coincidence, on the train down to Orpington, I read a piece by Amelia Hill in the Observer,  noting how the tradition of the Sunday roast — or its vegetarian equivalent– with the family gathered round the table, is dying out in Britain, which I think is a pity. Whether it is a meal at home or in a restaurant, and with real family or, as in my case today, one’s political family or friends, it is a tradition that has a useful function in socialising children and bonding adults — as many of our counterparts on the Continent still realise.