Granny's Sunday lunch

Granny was born in 1880. She was 17 when she watched Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee procession. I once asked her what Victoria looked like. "Very small and very cross" she said. Granny became a cook in domestic service until she married. She and Granddad would be classed as poor, but it was she who took nephews in without hesitation in the 1918 pandemic, and brought them up.

In season, Dad and I went for lunch every Saturday before football. And boy, could she cook. Always a roast, and never less than five vegetables. This is where I learned to love roast parsnips. Always slow cooked in a coal fired range, in a house that still had gas lighting.

So, now. In lockdown, our local takeaway is offering Sunday roasts, cooked slowly overnight. With parsnips. And tasting just like Granny's, it's eerie. Except now I'm allegedly a grown up I can have wine.

Only thing is,  the serving is twice what Granny used to dish up when I could eat monster meals, and I certainly can't handle that much these days. Enough for two, really. But Granny would approve.
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