Some childhood memories last for ever. Nothing diminishes them; even smells and tastes can be recalled with amazing clarity. One such memory haunts me every Easter as I walk past the mountains of hot cross buns sitting on supermarket shelves, wrapped in plastic and bearing a use-by date that suggests they will be safe to eat for some months to come. At this time of the year, many are on a two for one offer, or being sold at a very low price. I am never tempted to place a pack in my shopping basket. How could I sink my teeth into one of those soggy, chemical-packed apologies for a hot cross bun when I still remember how they used to taste?

I must have been about six when mother took me to my Uncle Derek's bakery shop in Witney's High Street. He baked everything in a large brick oven, using long wooden paddles to adjust the position of the baking trays.

First, I remember the aroma of spices that filled the air, followed by the irresistable smell of baking dough. Then came that magic moment when uncle opened the oven door and removed half a dozen trays of freshly baked hot cross buns. Without stopping to let them cool, he grabbed an enormous brush soaked in sugar syrup, and with the skill of one who had mastered this task many years before, brushed the buns with the syrup. A delightful sound of sizzling filled the air as the cold syrup soaked into the hot buns.

Because hot cross buns were actually served hot in those days, and because a queue of people were waiting for the first buns of Easter to go on sale, he then swiftly passed them into the shop, having first removed one for me to try.

Oh yes - a treasured memory indeed. Nothing has ever surpassed the taste of that spicy bun marked with a cross and still sticky from the syrup, which is why I shake my head sadly when confronting the buns that manufacturers dare to produce today. Yet there are still a few family bakeries that produce a really fresh hot cross bun. The Old Farmhouse Bakery, in Steventon, is one; their freshly baked buns are delicious.

Although it is widely believed they are traditonally eaten on Good Friday, with the cross acting as a symbol of the Crucifixion, they are also thought to pre-date Christianity. There are loads of interesting theories as to how hot cross buns came to be linked with Easter, however. That veritable treasure-trove, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, informs us that buns made by the Greeks with horns on them were offered to Apollo, Diana, Hecate and the moon. Apparently these round buns were said never to go mouldy, which is a myth that goes right back to those early days, and was taken particularly seriously during the dark ages when they were hung on the back of the kitchen door for luck.

Sailors once took them to sea to protect themselves from shipwreck, and farmers used to believe that they would keep rats out of the grain. Finely grated buns baked on Good Friday were sometimes hardened in the oven and grated into water, then used as a cure-all medicine.

Other theories link hot cross buns with the pagon worship of the goddess Eostre (after whom Easter was named) and some suggest that the cross was cut into the buns to keep the devil out of the oven.

Given the various ways they could have evolved, I admit to being horrified when political correctness went mad a few years ago and the buns were banned from certain schools so as not to offend children of non-Christian faiths. Some councils feared that the symbol of the cross would spark complaints from Jewish, Hindu and Muslim pupils. This ban was upheld, despite the fact that special menus to celebrate events as diverse as Chinese New year, Italian National Day and Russian Indepenence Day were given the OK.

Then last year a school in Ipswich banned them because they thought that the "two strips of decorative icing intersecting in the middle." might offend Jehovah's Witnesses who attended the school, because of the bun's pagan origins! Apparently this problem was solved by offering the children spiced buns which had not been marked with a cross.

As to their name, it seems they were originally called cross buns. Street venders selling them straight out of the oven would have added the word hot, which has remained a way of describing them to this day, despite the fact that most now come wrapped in plastic and sit on the cold supermarket shelves for the six weeks leading up to Easter, and several weeks beyond.

Out of interest I picked up a six-pack of supermarket hot cross buns just to see exactly what they put into them these days. These are the ingredients I found listed on the back of a pack that had been displayed for several weeks and still had four days shelf life left to run: "Wheat flour, water, sultanas (10%), raisins (9%) yeast, palm oil, mixed peel (3%), sugar, orange juice from concentrate, dextrose, emulsifiers (mono and diglycerides of fatty acids - vegetable, mono and diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono and diglycerides of fatty acids - vegetable), flavouring, flour treatment agent (ascorbic acid), lemon extract, maize starch, orange extract, preservative (potassium sorbate), salt, soya flour, spices (clove extract, cinnamon extract, coriander, nutmeg extract), stabiliser (guar gum), wheat protein."

How's that for a list!

On Tuesday, a workshop which ties in with the foods we eat during Easer is being held at the Oxford University Botanic Garden. The workshop takes place from 10.30am to 2pm and begins with a stroll along the garden's Spring Walk to admire the early blooming bulbs. Then its back to the conservatory to discuss some of the traditions behind our Easter foods. Participants then get a chance to make some Easter treats for their lunch. For further details call 01865 286690.