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Good morning. Turnip or tomato, which will grace your lunchtime today? Those images of empty supermarket shelves, bereft of their expected colourful abundance, have gone viral over these last few days. Meanwhile, when a senior government minister extolled the virtues, as an acceptable alternative, of the humble British root vegetable, public reaction was both immediate and intense. I’m personally fond of turnips. With a little protein, and alongside their country cousins, the carrot, parsnip and swede, they can form the basis of many a warming winter stew. Yet the turnip suffers an image problem. Long used as a term of insult, it hit the headlines in 1992, when the England men’s football team, crashed out of the European Championships, in a result immortalised by one national newspaper with the headline “Swedes 2, Turnips 1” alongside a picture of the vegetable with the face of the England team manager superimposed. In at least one nation of the United Kingdom, the turnip remains, thirty years on, a symbol of failure. When we’re told to eat turnips, however honest the intention, what some of us hear is not that there has been a failure in supermarket sourcing and distribution, or the smooth flow of imports from the European mainland, but that we ourselves are failures. Last week, my wife and I enjoyed our Shrove Tuesday pancakes. Traditionally consumed as a way of eating up meat based fats and other animal products, they remain a tangible and tasty symbol of the start of Lent. It’s a time when Christians are encouraged to reflect upon their own failures and weaknesses. Our personal shortcomings may not be plastered over newspaper back pages, nor accompanied by vicious, vegetable based insults, but Christians believe none of them are hidden from the eyes of God. Yet it’s also a season when our faith directs us towards one of the greatest symbols of failure of all, the cross on which Jesus was executed, and through which we believe our sins are forgiven. That too will be symbolised in my family by food, as we add hot cross buns to our weekly supermarket delivery. In turn it will lead to Easter, bringing the chocolate eggs our grandchildren eagerly await, symbols of the new life Christians find in the rising of Jesus from the dead. Food can stand for victory just as much as failure. Hence, the centrality of food to feasts and fasts, to rites and rituals, across many religions. It stands as a bulwark against any separation of body and soul. We are physical beings. Yet, at the same time, our food is not simply to keep us alive, it can be deeply spiritually symbolic. So whatever this week throws at you, be it triumph or disaster, tomatoes or turnips, Bon Appetit!