The origin of the Ploughman's Lunch

PLOUGHMAN’S LUNCH

We all know that a ploughman’s lunch is made up of fresh bread, hard cheese, onion and pickles, and harks back to simpler times when ploughmen pulled up their horses in shady furrows, unpacked their humble lunches and tucked in with gusto.

And we’d all be wrong. Because while it all sounds so wonderfully rural and wholesome, the ploughman’s has nothing to do with the traditional rural way of life at all.

The ‘Ploughman’s lunch’ is actually a modern term, coined during the late 1960s by the English Country Cheese Council as part of a marketing campaign to encourage people to eat more cheese. It goes without saying, it was a resounding success.