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Sunday Roast

Clarissa Dickson Wright and Johnny Scott have produced quite a unique book. It’s the complete guide to cooking and carving and just about everything else you’ll need to make a success of your traditional Sunday dinner.

How many of us sit down with friends and family for a real, old-fashioned Sunday Roast? It was a special time when all the family and perhaps a few friends would spend a few hours together without the distraction of TV or a weekend trip to “Tescburyrose”.

Don’t you remember the mouth-watering aroma of the joint and the sound of crisp potatoes falling onto the serving platter? It seems it’s a dying tradition and that is such a shame. We envy the culinary expertise of other countries but neglect our own. This is the book to reintroduce the disappearing art of cooking the Sunday lunch.

Clarissa has every roast meat as well as side dishes and even fish. There is a great selection of vegetable recipes that give a twist to some of the old faithfuls, and some sauces to take the place of the tired and boring gravy-made-from-a-packet.

If your Sunday culinary horizons have only extended as far as beef, lamb and chicken then this book will introduce you to a few interesting alternatives. Tongue (now, it’s delicious: don’t knock it ’till you have tried it), goose, rabbit and wild boar could soon be gracing your table.

“We are always in pain for a man who, instead of cutting up a fowl genteelly, is hacking for half an hour across a bone, greasing himself and besplattering the company with sauce: but where the master of the table dissects a bone with ease and grace, he is not only well thought of, but admired.” Those words were penned by the Reverend John Trusler in 1788.

Johnny Scott is evidently a master carver and the photographs by Gus Filgate and Kate Whitaker show of the techniques and recipes to splendid advantage. Perhaps we could consider Carving the Sunday Roast as the next ‘macho domain’ after Barbecueing, something that is manly and skilful and a spectacle to which the whole family looks forward. Read this book and you’ll see that it’s not rocket science, it’s easier than you would think.

A traditional Sunday roast is what every foreign tourist wants to try. It’s what overseas visitors assume, like a big cooked English breakfast, is a regular part of our lives. It should be, and Clarissa Dickson Wright and Johnny Scott have reminded us of that in a most tempting way.

Sunday Roast
Authors: Clarissa Dickson Wright and Johnny Scott
Published by: Kyle Cathie
Price: £14.99
ISBN 1-85626-672-9