A Slow Ploughman's Lunch

Slow Food Somerset is looking for pubs that serve a ploughman’s lunch containing traditionally produced ingredients. A Ploughman’s Lunch was chosen as both a useful benchmark by which to judge the food being served and to illustrate the principles of Slow Food.

Although the term “Ploughman’s Lunch” was first coined in the 1930’s as part of a very successful marketing campaign the concept behind it goes back much further. Throughout Somerset a farm workers lunch would typically have consisted of bread and cheese washed down with cider made on the farm. This simple format remains popular in countless pubs and harvest homes throughout the county. However all three of these ingredients nowadays bear little relation to those consumed by a farm worker a hundred or so years ago. The move towards large-scale production has tended to mean that taste has been compromised in favour of profit. Only the most dedicated producers persist with the traditional, usually more time consuming and therefore expensive, methods. Slow Food Somerset maintains that this simple pleasure should still be as available to all as it was once to every farm worker.

DEFINITION

The three essential ingredients of a Slow Ploughman’s are:

1. Artisan Somerset Cheddar – The unpasteurised cheddar produced by the Presidium cheesemakers Montgomery’s, Keens and Westcombe Dairy.

2. Bread –Homemade or supplied by an artisan baker. No flour improvers or additives should be used. White bread should have a minimum fermentation period of 10 hours. Wholemeal bread should be made from stone ground English wheat.

3. Farmhouse Cider or Real Ale –As defined by CAMRA and preferably from a brewery or cider maker in Somerset.

Other ingredients – Since a traditional ploughman’s lunch would need to have been carried into the fields and eaten without a plate, salad leaves would not be appropriate. An English apple, tomato or celery in season could be included. Pickles or chutneys were a way of including fruit or vegetables beyond their season and should be made as defined below:

Pickles/Chutneys – Homemade or produced in small batches. No artificial preservatives, additives or starch to be used.