Mary Berry's Happy Easter

Mary Berry explores the wonderful foods that bring each different community together on Easter Sunday
- the most symbolic and meaningful feast in the Christian calendar. BBC

I am inclined towards gardening rather than to cooking which may explain why I missed Mary Berry's Easter Feast when it was first shown last year on 22 Mar 2016. This year, more by accident than by design, on Good Friday I watched the most overtly Christian programme I have seen for some considerable time. BBC schedules have become somewhat short of Christian content of late which made the theme all the more remarkable. Given the BBC's preference for promoting Islam since appointing Muslims to head up religious content, perhaps it slipped through because the main them was cookery.

From the BBC's Media Centre description - As well as sharing her own family favourites like mouth-watering roast lamb, she discovers how the Greek Orthodox community break the Lenten fast with Tsoureki bread; spends a day with the Archbishop of York John Sentamu, cooking up a storm in his kitchen; and discovers Filipino and Italian Easter specialities.

The first episode explored the origin of the Hot Cross Bun, claimed originally to be the Alban Bun. Apparently legend has it that it originated in St Albans Abbey where 14th century monk, Brother Thomas Rocliffe, developed it using an original - and still closely guarded - recipe and distributed it to the local poor on Good Friday from 1361.

So far I have resisted the temptation to eat Hot Cross Buns before Good Friday. I think Mary Berry's advice to eat them throughout Lent is excellent. I shall find it difficult advice to avoid in future.

Alban buns                            Credit: The Herts Advertizer