The Guardian view on the Sunday roast: a tradition worth preserving | Editorial

The number of times families sit down to share the traditional midday meal is in steep decline. But there are reasons why it has been at the heart of domestic culture for centuries

Mothering Sunday marks the halfway point through the Lent fast and is also a traditional time for the family to sit down to a roast. But it is a tradition increasingly honoured in the breach. Each year, the trade journal The Grocer records a further slowdown in the number of times people gather round the dining table to tuck into a joint; another waymark is passed in the seemingly inexorable decline of old-style family meals, left behind by the fashionable appeal of quicker, more sustainable and, for some, more ethical alternatives - choices that do not involve rearing animals on environmentally costly grains and then killing them. This Sunday's roast at the pub chain Wetherspoon will be the last it offers. After that, it's off the menu. Roast dinner, good riddance? Be careful what you wish for.

It is true that there are plenty of reasons not to mourn the Sunday roast. A roast with all the trimmings can be, in the wrong hands, a bit of meat of uncertain consistency, viscous gravy and overcooked vegetables. British tastes have become more outward-looking and much more eclectic. We take foods from the Middle East and fuse them with the produce of northern Europe.