Barbecued lamb and 'just one really good egg': food and family at Easter
Darina Allen shares her memories of milk-fed lamb and food influencer ClĂona O’Connor talks about the popularity of her Insta-worthy banoffee sundaes. We also talk to mum-of-three Laura Horgan whose business has decorated tables and homes across Ireland this Easter and Maura McAuliffe, whose memories of Easter revolve around a kitchen garden.
On the second day of our two-day series looking at how Easter has changed in Ireland over the decades, we cover food and family talking to families and cooks from across the generations.Â
Darina Allen shares her memories of milk-fed lamb, and food influencer ClĂona O’Connor talks about the popularity of her Insta-worthy banoffee sundaes.Â
We also talk to mum-of-three Laura Horgan whose business has decorated tables and homes across Ireland this Easter and Maura McAuliffe whose memories of Easter revolve around a kitchen garden.
"When I was a child there was such a build-up to Easter with Palm Sunday and the procession, and everyone would have some palm. Then there was the build-up to Ash Wednesday and the fasting, there was so much fasting," remembers Darina.
The talk of fasting brings the topic of conversation from faith to food.
"At home then we didn't make hot cross buns. Mum made an Easter cake, which was a Victoria sponge. Then there was fish on Friday, more fasting, and we took all of that very seriously.
"When I went to boarding school, there was more of that [fasting], and the other thing was you'd have given up sweets for Lent and you'd break them out on Easter Sunday and you'd get one Easter egg and you ate it slowly, and you ate it over several days," explains the chef.
Many things changed when she left home in Laois and went to Ballymaloe. It is here she was first introduced to the idea of an Easter egg hunt, thanks to a German family who had received refuge in Cork during the Second World War.
"They'd have a hunt and use biscuits and have little eggs.
"Then when I started the school (Ballymaloe) I came across the simnel cake. I adapted Margaret Costa's recipe. It is an Easter cake, a heavy rich fruit cake with a layer of marzipan in the centre - a lot of the simnel cakes here are made from that recipe," explains Darina.
From the sweet to the savoury, and back to the main entrée: Easter food will "always be associated" with Spring or milk-fed lamb for Darina. The lamb was ordered ahead of time and it was cooked very simply with just some sea salt.
Aside from getting your order in on time, the additional worry was if there would be enough fresh mint at Easter to make mint sauce - done with sugar, vinegar and water.
Rhubarb was also a feature, in the form of a tart, and again it depended on if nature had provided. The provision also related to when Easter fell, whether it was late March or well into April.
And eggs: a "tonne of eggs" were allowed come Easter. But ones directly from a hen, not a chocolate factory.
The chocolate and more novelty side of Easter food is a "much more recent thing" says Darina.
"Meringue nests were not something I remember, and if you got an Easter egg you only got one," she adds.
"It's like Halloween and Easter, it's the commercialisation of it now. It's like everything else, some of this is driven by companies wanting to capitalise on a holiday and there is the build-up and the excitement and we all bought into it and added our spin."
Nowadays, she notes, it's rare for a child to get "just one egg" and she hears a lot about children getting sick from too much chocolate.
"What bothers me now is some eggs cost as little as a euro, the quality is appalling," she says.
"For me, now I just want one really good egg," she adds.
Busy Cork mum and home cook ClĂona O'Connor has become a cult kitchen figure for many parents across Ireland in the pandemic with her accessible and delectable-looking recipes she shares on Instagram. With more than 60,000 followers, an audience that boomed during the various lockdowns, she has a direct line to what younger generations are eating this Easter.
"I feel that lamb isn't as popular as it used to be and for people who do cook it, they cook it in a traditional way. My mum used to do roast lamb, whereas my friends who are parents now might not necessarily.
"You'd never hear of a barbecue at Easter when I was growing up. Now you hear of people having the first barbecue of the season; the amount of people who message me about getting the barbecue out," says ClĂona.
"But a huge majority of my friends would just make a nice dinner, a lot of people will go into town or go down to Douglas," she adds.
It's a case that people are celebrating Easter, and using food to do so, but not as our parents would have.
"There are the get-togethers, but I don't think it's a traditional meal on the plate, but it's definitely getting together and gathering," says ClĂona.
One lamb recipe that she shared that was a hit with her tens of thousands of followers was an Asian lamb dish done with chops. She did it in the oven but it can be done on the barbecue too.
Lots of people messaged to say: "I'm going to cook that on Easter Sunday".
Another dish, but dessert this time, that got people talking was her banoffee Sundae recipe.
"A huge amount of people got back about the sundae, people still want to have that special dessert put away for Easter Sunday - especially desserts, people are big into desserts," says ClĂona.
"People do see it as a special day," she adds.
It's that the tradition of cooking and gathering remains but that anything goes when it comes to gastronomy.
"There are a huge amount of people who don't like lamb, there's a distinct smell when you roast it but they might have it in a curry or do it on the barbecue.
"Then there are a lot of people my age and younger who have never had a simnel cake.
"There's definitely a lot more novelty desserts that people would look at on Instagram but not actually make. But people loved the meringue nests I did, they did really well," she adds.
Maura McAuliffe's abiding memory of Easter is good weather, gardening and being put in a new dress and cardigan. But there was also mass and "nothing would have been missed", says the 72-year-old mother of six from Killucan, Westmeath, but who grew up in Leitrim.
"I grew up in the country where we had a farm, and Easter in terms of celebration was not huge. We would have had a big kitchen garden, that was a big focus, and we planted potatoes on Good Friday," says Maura.
This Good Friday, she will plant potatoes again too.
Easter was not a time for large gatherings and extravagant meals but it did mean lots of mass going.
"Nothing would have been missed. There was Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday the late mass and the fire outside, and then Sunday. I remember fine weather and I was changing into a dress, a dress and a cardigan, that is what stands out for me and feeling 'this is Easter'," remembers Maura.
She was studious about mass too, and remembers sitting on the stairs at home studying the missal to see what prayers would be coming up that evening in mass.
Food-wise, Easter Sunday meant eggs as they had a hen, and then later as a teenager and a woman in her 20s, she remembers the role of dancing as the dance halls reopened.
I think there was no dance hall activity allowed during Lent, and in my early 20s I would have been a ballroom dancer and gone to the bands and from Easter Sunday the dances would start again and that would have been a highlight.
By the time she became a mother, life had changed in Ireland and while she took her children to various Easter masses, they would also have had their own activities going on.
Nowadays, she herself will attend the Stations of the Cross on Good Friday and Easter Sunday mass.
But it is neither religion, nor food, nor family gathering that represents Easter to her, but nature.
"Gardening is my real passion, and the memory of planting potatoes on Good Friday. When I think of Easter I think of gardening and going back to my childhood".
Laura Horgan has a unique view when it comes to how we are celebrating Easter in Ireland in 2022. As a mum of three children aged 7, 6, and 3, and owner of lifestyle brand LNH Edit selling homewares, she has been navigating family life while providing Easter decorations and tableware to people all over Ireland.
She gets to family and faith first though, business is second.
"My children all finished up school last Friday. Elizabeth, 7, is making her Holy Communion so she is really into the religious side of things and we are trying to encourage that with the Holy Communion.
"I'm not sure we would have gone to mass this Easter Sunday, but we are going in light of her making her Holy Communion soon," says Laura.
"Before kids, I went to mass all the time and was extremely religious. I don't know what happened after I had kids but I think it could have been a timing thing. I used to go to mass every Sunday when we lived in London and before we had children and it was a form of mindfulness now looking back," she adds.
But the family of five will go to mass this Sunday near their home in Dublin.
When it comes to work, she has been "flat to the mat" in the last few weeks, with customers buying up her Easter decorations and following her table decorating ideas on Instagram.
Customers include Vogue Williams and Rosanna Davison.
Easter seems to be really popular. We launched the business last year, and we launched with Easter as our first theme.
"This was our first month being able to relate back to a previous year of trade and that was really insightful. This year was even better than last. I think people are really getting into it and loving Easter tablescapes, Easter maybe more so than other occasions," says Laura.
The busyness points to people entertaining at home and inviting friends and family for dinner.
"People are really into Easter decorations as well as the table settings and it definitely seems to be a holiday that's really being celebrated. I don't know how many people are going to mass but kids are really getting sucked into the whole Easter Bunny and Easter lunch and family time," she adds.
For her, her whole estate takes part in an egg hunt.
"It started in lockdown and it stuck around and the Easter Bunny comes to us and we are all down on the green for an egg hunt for the little ones and a lot of effort goes into it.
"I thought after Covid we wouldn't be doing this but we absolutely are and the kids think that is part of Easter," she adds.
Read More
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
