AIBU to think this was NOT a ploughmans lunch?

[Yellowbird54321]

I was chatting to my sister on the phone yesterday when she mentioned she had made her kids a ploughman's lunch and they had really enjoyed it.

One of her kids is a bit of a fussy eater so I asked if he had eaten all of it, including the apple; this is when she admitted there was no apple in the ploughman's!

When I asked what was in it she listed: cheese, ham, lettuce, coleslaw, bread and pickle. No meat knocker!!!

AIBU to think a ploughman's lunch without apple and meat knocker is not actually a ploughman's lunch at all?

Ploughmans lunch was around before the 80s.

"You do all know that the ploughman's is/was a made up thing in the 1980s to get people back into pubs?"

No it isn't. We used to eat ploughman's lunches back in the 60s.

My mums always called this kind of lunch 'bits and pieces' when we were kids, bit of ham, bit of cheese, cut veggies. Any random thing on a plate really. Still my fave kind of lunch.

These replies have given me a good giggle thank you.

I'm starting to suspect the term meat knocker is a family thing now rather than a regional thing but I'm sure I've other people round here call them that

Still can't quite believe no-one else out there has heard / uses this term though - it must have come from somewhere!

Not heard of a growler of squealer - am quite fascinated by the 'long egg' - I thought gala pies would have lots of eggs placed next to each other rather than one long one!! How does that happen?

I'm sure I've heard*

I don't think there are chickens that lay special long eggs for gala pies.

I managed to hold it in until 'long egg' OMG is that real!! There is so much I don't know.

Ooh yes piglet forgot the pint of bitter is part of it too. She missed that out as well.

Wow I'm learning so much here. It's like a whole new language!

In somerset a ploughman is cheese, bread and pickle. Nice extras are ham, lettuce. Never heard a pork pie be called a meat knocker (sounds very strange) and why ruin a ploughmans with it!

I fear I may be too southern for this thread.

I just spat my drink out!

I went to culinary school and never heard of calling that cut a vandyke. I cant remember what we called it, nor be bothered to go look at the book that would tell me though. You can cut melons, citrus, tomatoes that way. Seems a bit of trouble for an egg, which doesnt even pretend to be a sphere like the others.

Meat knocker? Is this where you eat all of the ploughman except the squeak?

Bread, cheese, pickle = Ploughman's. So Op you were looking for an opportunity to judge your DSis' parenting and ended up with pickle on your face

Although of course, the is no such thing, as others have said. An advertising trick from the 1960s (not 80s) which worked a treat. My Gps thought it was the height of sophistication to go to the pub for a Ploughman's in the 1970s.

There's no way I'm ever saying Meat Knocker out loud.

How do they make the long pie egg long? What sort of weird cloacaically deformed chickens are laying such eggs?

I can't believe I've never noticed the phenomenon of the long egg.

I often wonder if there is some poor man sat at google reading the reports of what the world has googled that day...and MN being responsible for some of the more choice search terms...

I hope he is not easily embarrassed

Not heard of a growler of squealer - am quite fascinated by the 'long egg' - I thought gala pies would have lots of eggs placed next to each other rather than one long one!! How does that happen

When you make them at gome, you do place a row of eggs in a long loaf shaped pie. In a round pie, you place them carefully and mark the edge of the crust so you know where to cut so the eggs show.

Factory made, or restaurant made, use long eggs

According to Wikipedia, the Ploughman's Lunch (bread, cheese, pickle, beer) was something the Cheese Bureau came up with around 1956. But its thought to date back a lot further than that. The Cheese Bureau (just typing that makes me giggle) came into being after cheese rationing ended.

Jeanne, I was reading Hodge and His Masters and early Victorian ploughmen also apparently ate cheese, oats, greens and beans.

That'll account for them reaching the grand old age of 28, then.

That long egg thing is fascinating. Can't believe I watched, but who'd have thought. I though I was just lucky to have never got the bit of pie with the end of the egg.

I'm in the South East (Surrey specifically!) and I've always had a ploughman with cheddar, Stilton, pickle, fresh bloomer, pickled onions, Garden lettuce, spring onions and celery sticks. Bloody wonderful!

Well the long egg video is now my most absolute favourite you tube video, so thank you momagain. The commentary in German only enhances the wonderment.

I've only ever heard of pork pies being called pork pies.
Never heard of them being called meat knockers or squealers.

I like a bit of haslet myself, pronounced hayslet not hazlet.

I never knew long eggs existed. Every days a school day.

I am CRYING laughing at "meat knocker" "long egg" and cockney tomatoes going up chimneys. DH and DS are looking at me like

I love this thread. What does one do to nominate for classics?