ROAST DINNERS

When I was a kid we had a “roast dinner" every Sunday. It was lunch-time but it was called a “roast dinner.”

Usually it was a leg of lamb. No rosemary. No garlic. Occasionally it was a slab of pork and we would fight over who got the most crackling. Pure fat. Heart attack on a plate!

We never had roast chicken. That was a luxury reserved for Easter and Christmas. I couldn’t believe it when I got from New Zealand to Australia and discovered that people ate roast chicken every week. And then I got to America and discovered it was junk food!

But on Sundays in New Zealie Mum would roast the leg of lamb.

Dad would pour his first beer from a flagon of flat warm swill around 11a.m. as the smells of the roasting lamb would filter through from the kitchen. And us kids were allowed a shandy from a peanut butter jar. A touch of beer but mostly lemonade.

Then the roast lamb. The best bits were the dark slivers at the bottom of the shank. As they say: the closer to the bone, the sweeter the meat. A bit like life, really. And we always had roast potatoes and carrots and sometimes parsnips and roast pumpkin. And delicious dark gravy.

It was a Sunday ritual. And in Melbourne, in several classy restaurants, that ritual is, surprisingly, coming back.

At the new Fawkner, in Toorak Road – which I reviewed recently – they have Sunday roasts for less than 30 dollars. Beef, pork, lamb. It changes every week.

My favourite is at Riva at the St Kilda Marina. They now spruik their “winter Sunday roast”. It’s good value. They charge $22.50 for a “traditional Sunday roast with roasted baby potatoes, butternut pumpkin, garden peas and home style gravy”.

I liked their other line: With a glass of red and a roaring open fire, where else would you want to be on a cold, rainy, Sunday?”

And it is true. Sunday roasts bring back such cosy family memories. It WAS the biggest family meal of the week. We would listen to the Sunday Morning Hospital Request session on the wireless.

Then the other weekly traditions: Mum would cook. We would help peel the spuds. Dad would carve. And we would eat so much that Sunday night it was just “bubble and squeak” or Dad would make chips. Or we would have toasted sandwiches filled with baked beans and cheese from the new-fangled “jaffle iron”. Or “jiffy iron” as some people called them.

The Sunday roast was a tradition. It’s good to see it back.