A ‘traditional’ dish on this day was said to be ‘Plough
Pudding,’ which I do not fully understand as heavy, plain suet puddings were an
everyday starchy filler for the British populace throughout the year. In other
parts of the world, it is said that sausages are ‘traditional,’ but this also
seems difficult to verify. Surely, the
obvious dish of the day is a traditional
‘Ploughman’s Lunch’?
The Oxford
English Dictionary tells me
however that ‘although often assumed to be a traditional rural meal, the
ploughman's lunch (now freq. abbreviated to ploughman's) first appeared
in British pubs in the late 1960s.’
This is not true in the strictest sense, of
course. The pub version – one or two
substantial wedges of good cheese (sometimes a wedge of pork pie) with good
bread, pickled onions, and some sort of ‘chutney’ (especially Branston Pickle!) – is a rather more
elegant offering than our olden-day farm worker would have carried in his
pocket out into the fields, but there is no doubt that the basic bread and
cheese was a staple lunch for the workers probably for centuries. As The Cultivator & Country Gentleman
(1866) explains:
‘The cheese
of the English working man being a necessary, must be of such a texture that it
will bear handling and carriage and sub-dividing to any extent, similar to his
first great necessary, bread itself, which he consumes together with it as his “bread and cheese.”
Indeed, nearly all classes in England take a daily “lunch of bread and cheese.”
The landowner takes his luncheons in the field, carried by his servant, who
also takes his – when out shooting or in a tenant’s house – both my lord and
his servant eating cheese. Ploughmen and driving boys in the field eat cheese
as part of their daily “lunch” or “bait.” Harvester, hop-pickers, every one
takes a “bait” of bread and cheese.’
So, there
you have it. Dry hard bread and dry hard cheese were the ‘real’ tradition, the
twentieth century pub meal is the glammed-up modern tradition.
A ploughman
was not at the bottom of the farm-workers’ pecking order. The job was skilled,
and good ploughmen were always in demand. According to The Topographical, statistical,
and historical gazetteer of Scotland (1853) (and I hardly suppose it was much different in England), the ploughman
was paid very little cash – not more than a few pounds a year – but received
substantial allowances including a house, garden, a cow, ‘the produce of 1,000
yards of potatoes’, ‘... 60 bushels of oats, 18 bushels of barley, 6 bushels of
peas ...’ To say that he worked hard for these allowances - the value of which
‘may be estimated as not exceeding £26 a year’ - would be an
understatement of monumental proportions. The same journal informs us:
‘For all these considerations ... he is obliged to take
charge of, and work one pair of horses, in every requisite operation connected
with the farm; - he must attend the stable every morning, noon, and night, to
give food to the horses; - he must take his turn with the ploughmen to remain
at home on Sunday to give food to the horses; - he must work in winter as long
as there is daylight, and in summer ten hours a day in the fields, and in
seed-time and harvest his hours of labour are unlimited; - he must supply a
female labourer to work at farm labour in all seasons, and for the same time as
himself, when required; and for whose labours he receives eightpence or
tenpence a day, when she is employed, according to the rate of wages; this
female must reap corn during harvest, as rent for the house and garden, for
which she receives the ordinary victuals allowed in harvest; - his own family
must feed his cow in winter; - and he must work his garden only at leisure
hours.’
Makes a day
in front of a computer screen seem like a bit of a doddle, doesn’t it? You don’t
have to ‘supply a female labourer’ in most modern jobs either. At least, not in
the jobs you would tell your mum about.
Recipe for the Day.
Here is a
nice pineapple chutney for you. It is not a ‘traditional’ side to the cheese at
a ploughman’s lunch, but it sounds interesting, I think. If quince paste is OK
with cheese, why not pineapple chutney? Serve it at your next two wine and
cheese parties, and it will be your own new tradition.
Pineapple Chutney.
Take four
small ripe pineapples, cut in. halves lengthwise and remove the cores, and scrape
the pulp into a pan; then add half pint vinegar and half pint lime juice, one
large onion (minced), one clove of garlic (minced), six chillies, ½ lb. chopped
raisins, ½ lb. sugar, two oz. salt, half oz. ground ginger, and a pinch each
cayenne and spice. Boil slowly for two hours until it thickens.
West
Gippsland Gazette (Warragul,
Victoria), Oct 19, 1926
Quotation for the
Day.
Billie Burke.
4 comments:
Oo arrr, I do miss them there ploughman lunches I used to get in the Old Country. Went down right nice with a Stout.
Now I makes um myself! Aharr.Nowt like a good piece of cheese an home made bread.
Keith.
http://woodsrunnersdiary.blogspot.com
Janet . . . Excellent article! Your quoted historical sources are a stimulating conversation with one's ancestors. The ploughman and his laboring woman . . . one hopes they found merriment amongst all their labors. I want to believe their lives were substantially better than the lives of factory workers. At least clean air and fresh food.
Your writing, again, is lyrical, amusing, insightful, and wonderfully literate.
And as you are the writer, Le Loup is certainly a fine lead character on your pages. Can a reader ever see enough of "Oo arrr" in print?
I thoroughly enjoyed this article and will be pondering the ploughman . . . thanks to your research.
Thankyou, Le Loup, as always, for your interest and enthusiasm. I bet your home-made ploughman's lunches are pretty good! You are indeed, as sesanner says, a fine lead character here on this blog!
And thankyou, sesanner, for your very kind words. I should add that I have corrected the "few pounds s week" to "few pounds a year." I couldnt help wondering how much 'leisure time" the ploughman and his family got to tend their own garden (and hens, and cow) - which must have had to contribute a substantial amount to the family meals.
That pineapple chutney sounds like something I'll have to try the next time our local grocery has canned pineapple on sale.
(real pineapple, in the Midwest US, in winter, is cost-prohibitive).
Post a Comment