Fedora Kolentine, 9, has missed the annual ritual of visiting New Market this year to buy Easter eggs and hampers for her friends and cousins.
New Market is closed. The few confectioneries that are running are mostly making breads. Some have refused Easter orders and across homes celebrations are muted because of the lockdown.
Confectionaries are short-staffed and have to deal with unavailability of ingredients. Also, demand is low because stepping out of homes is not an option.
Flurys has ramped up its production of breads but only hot cross buns and chocolate bunnies. Usually, every year there is the traditional simnel cake, carrot cake and the marzipan or chocolate eggs.
Last year, there was an elaborate Easter brunch. “This year, we do not have an extensive Easter menu as most of our stores are shut for the lockdown… and our focus is on producing and supplying breads — an essential commodity,” Vikas Kumar, executive chef, Flurys, said. “Since movement of people is extremely limited, we do not have a huge demand.”
Fedora is compensating for the missed chance of going to a confectioner by helping her mother with a few things at home. “Some of the outlets are open but I cannot risk taking her out; so, we are preparing some Easter eggs at home,” her mother Dorothy Kolentine, 42, who works in the administrative section of a city school said. “It’s a tradition to go out on Saturday to get stuff… visit relatives on Sunday, all of which has to be changed this year.”
Kookie Jar, which opened two of its outlets this week only for breads, has had to refuse Easter orders.
“People have been calling us to place Easter orders but we have had to refuse them. We do not have the manpower… and also ingredients are not available,” Lovey Barman, director of Kookie Jar, said.
Rahul Sequeira has bought some Easter eggs for his family from a confectioner but the teacher said he missed giving hampers to kids in the neighbourhood.
“It is the time when many of us do that but it won’t be possible this year.”