The death of tradition

I found this in my drafts - don't think it ever got published. So am publishing now. It's actually fairly current.

It's January 2nd. The not very good photograph above is what you first see as you enter Woolworth's supermarket - hot cross buns. Good Friday, when they are traditionally eaten, is on April 14th this year - more than three months away!!!! A quarter of the year.

Now I do like hot cross buns and doubtless I shall be buying them on and off between now and Easter, but really. Why do they do it? Why can't they just produce fruit buns all year and then put a cross on them at Easter? They're an English Easter tradition - eaten on Good Friday - with the cross obviously representing the crucifixion and the spices the spices used to embalm Christ's body. Eating the spicy treat signals the end of Lenten fasting. It's a centuries old tradition.

So I looked a little more and indeed there is a lot of protest out there. Apparently they started selling them on Boxing Day. And Easter eggs are already out in some stores too. The supermarkets claim that they are simply responding to demand - which may well be the case I guess, because, hypocrite that I am, I shall doubtless buy them from time to time. But nevertheless they really don't have to be hot cross buns - they could be buns without crosses. And in fact Ferguson Plarre (a bakery chain) is mounting a campaign for the Not Cross Bun. I actually find it all a bit weird. I'm sure that in my childhood you could buy currant buns all year - it was just that at Easter time they had crosses on them which made them a bit special - and besides your mum might have made them at home. Then there were the pancakes we had on Shrove Tuesday too. Besides there are always coffee and apple scrolls and sticky buns as we used to call them for your sugar hit.

I'm guessing that they may have tried to sell plain fruit buns and they weren't a success. But surely that's just a matter of marketing nouse. I mean what difference does the cross make to the taste? None. In fact it detracts from it a bit for me. A good salesman can sell anything. I do think it's sad though that another tradition has bitten the dust.

Nothing more to say on this really.