A shoulder of mutton slowly roasted, golden and tender, surrounded by potatoes cooking in the juices, accompanied by tangy redcurrant jelly. The meal that celebrates a good week.

Why this dish? The Annings lived day to day, but the sale of a large fossil — an ichthyosaur, a plesiosaur — suddenly brought in money. On those days, they treated themselves to meat: a fine piece of roast mutton, a rare luxury for a family in Lyme Regis.

You must know that a fine fossil sold to a London gentleman could feed the family for weeks. And then, my friends, we spared no expense: my mother would send for a shoulder of mutton from the butcher, and we would set it to roast before the fire, on the spit, until the fat sang as it fell into the dripping pan. We served it with redcurrant jelly from the garden — a little sharpness to wake up the fat. That was our way of thanking the Lord for a week of good fortune.

How it was made : In modest households, the roast was cooked on a spit before the hearth, with fat collected in a dripping pan to waste nothing. Lacking an oven, many would take their meat and potatoes to the village baker, who would cook them in his still-hot bread oven for a few pence.

The contemporary twist : Shred the leftovers the next day into a sourdough sandwich with redcurrant jelly — the 'fossil hunter's roll'.

Mary Anning · Charactorium