Even in the bad times (except maybe actually during rationing) the good British food has always been there to be found.
Basic stuff, perhaps, but things like good pie and mash shops have been around a very long time.
I think the cheese/milk marketing board didn’t invent it - they revived/promoted it after the end of wartime rationing.
Meat pies I find gross. Probably because of the frozen chicken pot pie my Mother fed me.
Names like “mash” and “toad in the hole” don’t help the reputation, either.
Patrick O’brien’s characters are eating steaks, roasts, potatoes and parsnips in butter, stuff that I like.
Don’t forget “spotted dick”.
It appears that the ploughman’s lunch was not a “thing” until it was promoted by the Cheese Bureau in the U.K. in 1956. The various food items included certainly existed before and once again became easily available after the rationing ended in the 1950’s, but they weren’t thought of as being part of a specific meal before 1956. There’s even a certain amount of general knowledge in the U.K. of the inauthenticity of the meal. A 1983 film was called The Ploughman’s Lunch because it was about the attempt to pass off something new as being something traditional:
Incidentally, I love Stilton, even if you can’t chase it down a hill.
And drowned baby.
Since we are discussing English food, do you know which is the briefer book in the world?
English cuisine; a complete list.
What about the second briefer book?
Great English lovers.
Stilton? Well, we don’t get much call for it around here, sir.
Agreed - it certainly it looks as though it was only branded and formalised in the 50s, but bread, cheese, beer and pickle are obviously ancient staples of pubs, inns and almshouses.
Please come back in another three years and entertain us again!
Brie, Roquefort, Pol le Veq, Port Salut, Savoy Aire, Saint Paulin, Carrier de lest, Bres Bleu, Bruson…?
I’m still not seeing “The British and their odd ways” as a viable reality show.
Fuck them, and the Mayflower they sailed in on*!
*“in on”?
My Dad says that you get on a boat, but in a ship. He’s been known to make stuff like that up, though.
I think “briefest” maybe the word you’re struggling for, my dear old chap.
I recently purchased your esteemed tome “The wit and wisdom of Megas P”.
500 sheets of blank paper (£2.99 at Rymans), it’s a big seller over here in Blighty.
Touche’.
Touché.
Toosh!
Eh?
Bless you.