Hot Cross Dilemma

By Peter Ould, on April 6th, 2009

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I need your help to resolve this point of contention in the Ould household.

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Nick Churchill

In the good old days of my youth 1960′s/70′s Hot Cross Buns where only available from the bakers the day before Good Friday and on Easter Saturday (Good Friday all the shops where shut!) You had to queue up and they were sold still hot from the ovens.
Sue

When should Hot Cross buns be eaten? If you are a purist on this issue, then the answer is not until Good Friday (hint: that’s why there’s a cross on them.) However, if you are particularly devoted to said buns, hot and toasted with butter melting on them, then you might not care to wait that long. In our household we tend to favour indulgence over abstinence on this particular issue and everyone has been wiping crumbs from their mouths for some weeks now. So, I plumped for the “if the supermarkets selling them, we toast and butter them ” option. That’s the sort of open minded, free thinking gal I am…
Susan

I’ve never toasted or buttered one. We eat them straight from the package. Occasionally warmed up in the microwave for a few seconds, but only occasionally.

JoMo loved these when he was little. He called them ‘Ba Ba Bun’–said to the rhythm of the hot cross bun song! Not sure if he confused them with BaaBaa Black Sheep or not…..
ryan

Good Lord, why are so many people voting for Ash Wednesday?! That’s sick and wrong. If you don”t (as a reformed evangelical type) believe in fasting etc then have hot cruss buns all year round – don’t make a point of *starting* to eat them on Ash Wednesday! I nearly said something to the girl in borders who was putting out the Easter cards in the second week of lent too.

http://www.peter-ould.net Peter Ould

Ideally I’d start at dusk on Thursday. My wife has other ideas…

Robert Simpson

I do hope we are not being recruited as cannon fodder in a domestic dispute …

http://www.peter-ould.net Peter Ould

If you could just don that shirt with the nice target on it and line up over there, that would be perfect…

driver8

FWIW Ronald Hutton in “Stations of the Sun” suggests that the making and/or eating of hot cross buns on Good Friday and the “lucky” properties once commonly associated with hot cross buns may be an echo of medieval holy week piety: namely, the veneration of the consecrated host in the Easter Sepulchre.
ryan

Surely it also depends on whether yourself and Gail are high church or somewhat lower down the candlestick? Most evangelical anglicans of my acquaintance don’t (for shame!) observe Lent, which would obviously also mean that they would have no rules against eating Hot Cross Buns whenever they feel like it.

And surely biblical types like yourself ,Peter, can just invoke the wifes obey thy husbands rule? ;-)

http://www.peter-ould.net Peter Ould

I’m much further up the candle than Gayle. And yes, she said “obey” at the wedding, but apparently it doesn’t extend to baked goods…