How to Make a Vegan Ploughman’s Lunch
The Ploughman’s lunch is about as English as you can get, accompanied by a nice glass of Dunkerton’s organic cider. But you don’t have to splash out at a pub if you’re on a budget. You can make your own, and even make it vegan too! It’s not really even a recipe, you just find good food, and plonk them together on a plate!
Pickled onions are choking hazards for children, also keep onions and gherkins away from pets. Read more on food safety for people & pets. Just bin fresh onion/shallot/tomato scraps, as acids could harm compost creatures.
- Choose organic apples, as conventional ones are sprayed with shellac (dead insects) to make them look waxy.
- Good vegan cheese (forget the coconut oil supermarket brands, and choose something better in the farm shop or health store).
- Pickled onions and gherkins (of course!)
- Fresh radishes (optional)
- Good bread (splash out at the local bakery)
- Vegan butter (all Flora brands are free from palm oil)
- Sticks of celery
Gather Your Fresh Ingredients
Kinda makes a nice vegan cheddar
It only takes a few minutes to plate everything up. Ensure produce is patted dry after rinsing to retain flavour, and butter your bread close to serving, to keep it crisp. You can add a little English mustard to the bread if you like, and spoon chutney into a bowl, to keep your Ploughman’s board clean, and stop sogginess! Some fresh organic tomato halves are optional extras.
Only really make as much as you need, as a vegan Ploughman’s won’t keep for long. If you’re having a picnic, keep the apple slices in lemon water, to prevent browning until you eat them.
History of the English Ploughman’s Lunch
Would you guest that the lunch was made for ploughmen in the field? You’d be sort of right. The original meal of bread and cheese with a pint, dates back to 1394, though it became popular in the 1950s. The lunch was designed by the Milk Marketing Board to increase sales of cheese, after World War II rationing ended (70% of cheese was being imported). But rural labourers had been eating this way for years.
In 2022, the landlord of a Devon pub decided to rename it as a ‘Ploughperson’s lunch’ in honour of female farmers on Dartmoor. He intended this to bring attention to his pub. It worked, as there was ‘fury’ at trying to change the name! The original lunch was thought to have originated in Kent (who ate it with beer). While Devon farmers preferred sour cider.
But it’s always best to make your own. Tesco’s ‘Ploughman’s Sandwich’ contains ingredients that ancient farmers would not even recognise: mono-and-diglycerides of fatty acids, mono-and-diacetyl tartaric acid esters of mono-and-diglycerides of fatty acids and palm oil – all wrapped in plastic.
