Sunday roast

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Sunday roast consisting of roast beef, roast potatoes, vegetables and yorkshire pudding

The Sunday roast is a traditional British and Irish main meal served on Sundays (usually in the early afternoon), and consisting of roasted meat together with accompaniments. Other names for this meal are Sunday dinner, Sunday lunch, and Sunday joint. The tradition arose because the meat could be left in the oven to cook before church on a Sunday morning, and it would be ready when the family arrived home at lunchtime.

Sunday roasts are also common (though less so in recent times) in other Commonwealth countries such as Australia although there, roasts increasingly feature on the menus of cafes and restaurants catering to British backpackers.

Typical elements

Typical meats used for a Sunday roast are beef, pork, lamb or chicken, or more rarely duck, goose, gammon, turkey, game or a vegetarian alternative such as a nut roast. Commonly, roasts are served with traditional accompaniments which vary according to the type of meat; these are:

roast beef — served with Yorkshire pudding; and horseradish sauce or English mustard as relishes.
roast pork — served with crackling and sage and onion stuffing; apple sauce and English mustard as relishes
roast lamb — served with sage and onion stuffing and mint sauce or redcurrant jelly as a relish
roast chicken — served with pigs in blankets, chipolata sausages and stuffing, and bread sauce or cranberry sauce or redcurrant jelly

Sunday roasts are served with a range of boiled and roast vegetables. Boiled vegetables were commonly a part of almost all British main meals, but since the advent of more international cuisine this tradition has declined. The Sunday Roast is perhaps one of the last meals where this tradition survives.

The vegetables served vary seasonally and regionally, but almost invariably this will include roast potatoes, which have been roasted in the roast meat drippings, and also a gravy made from the meat juices. Other vegetable dishes served with roast dinner can include mashed swede, turnips, boiled cabbage, roast parsnips, sliced boiled carrots and peas.

Sunday Roast in pubs and restaurants

Many pubs in Britain serving food have a special "Sunday menu" that features a Sunday Roast, usually with a variety of meats available, and this is often cheaper than the normal menu.

See also: Pub grub

British Trends

In recent years, the appearance of news programmes in the Sunday lunchtime slot in British television schedules has resulted in the term Sunday Roast being used to describe a searching — and sometimes abrasive — interview of a leading politician. This usage is based on a modern interpretation of the words roast or grill to mean a barrage of diffcult questions.

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