Friday, March 21, 2008

Polly's Good on Friday

Today is Good Friday, which traditionally is a day associated with fasting and sobriety, in commemoration of the death of Jesus Christ by crucifxion. Although a Church Holiday, in Ireland today has always been a source of confusion. This is largely due to the fact that in the past Church Holidays have often coincided with Bank Holidays.

Last night, Holy Thursday, revellers at the night clubs in town were no doubt surprised; (as I was a number of years ago) to discover that the music stopped at 12 midnight on the dot. Not only this; the bars shut early too, leading the youth of today (and yesterday) to retire early for a day of solemn contemplation.

For the drinkers amongst us this is nothing short of catastrophic. In Ireland the majority of pubs are closed on Good Friday. Today is one of the two official days off for publicans. The local hotels will probably experience a shift in trade patterns today; as they are the only establishments allowed to open!

The Supermarket giants, such as Dunnes Store's, SuperQuinn and Tesco's are running the cheap booze campaigns again this year, offering cases of beer for as little as €11.99 in an effort to clean up; which no doubt they will. Cheaper outlets, such as Lidl, Aldi, etc are no doubt following suit; as they seldom miss an opportunity to sell anything cheaply!

All of this said, I have a small stock of red wine, purchased yesterday at my local Tesco's. The difference is that I seldom go shopping and when I do, I generally pick up a bottle or two in the vain hopes that it will see us through to the next time. I must also point out that the Corbieres doesn't tend to be marked down in celebration of anything, especially as it is one of their own brands. I guess this means it isn't too popular!

Another tradition associated with today is fasting from meat. Traditionally this results in the price of fish escalating in tandem with sales volume increasing! What the supermarkets lose with the loss leaders, ie beer and branded wines they will generally make up on the fish counters! Ooh dear! Is that a bit too cynical...?

Once again, I have cashed in on this as DG and I shall be eating Lemon Soul (should read Sole!) for supper this evening, with a selection of seasonal vegetables. Seeing as I bought it in the knock down section a while back it was an inexpensive purchase which has been nestling with icepacks and frozen peas for a couple of months.

The boys, who hate fish with a passion will be feasting on Tesco's economy brand Scampi. I'm not daft enough to try and 'cod' (should read con) them with fish fingers. They'll probably think I'm giving them chicken nuggets, hee, hee, hee! Take note of the fact that I bought the cheapest ones on the shelf...

If the worst comes to the worst DG and I will polish them off too and the kids will have to put up with a fried egg and chips!

3 comments:

Kieran said...

Well, at least tomorrow is the end of Lent and things back to normal. Well, except the chocolate egg frenzy. Happy Easter.

culinarytravelsofakitchengoddess said...

Hardly any seems to obide by any of the 'rules' of Lent/Easter here (UK) at all.

I do remember going to Cork with a few friends a couple of Easters back and being very shocked too about everything finishing at midnight, lol.

Enjoy Easter :)

PS Thanks for visiting my blog, yours is looking great btw.

Polly Peirce said...

Polly Peirce said...

Hi Kieran, thanks for visiting! Congratulations on your recent Irish Blogger Award; you deserve it!

I've just been checking out your site for the first time in a while and my mouth is watering, but not for duck egg and bacon ice-cream...

To the Kitchen Goddess; thanks for your nice comments! Be sure to come back and celebrate other holidays with us some other time!

Happy Easter!