[1] The Ploughman’s Lunch, a staple lunch in Britain for centuries (photo ©Taste | Australia).

[2] Have an Irish beer with your lunch (photo © Murphy’s Irish Stout).

[3] Smithwick’s Irish Ale (photo © Smithwick’s).

For St. Patrick’s Day, how about a Ploughman’s lunch? You can bring it to work or dig in at home.

Pronounced “plow man,” Ploughman’s, as it’s called for short, is a cold lunch that farmers (the plow men) and other laborers in the British Isles (including Ireland), out for the day, would take with them.

The lunch included bread and butter, cheese (cheddar, stilton or other local cheese), relish such as a Branston pickle (chutney),* piccalilli* and/or pickled onions.

 
The history of the ploughman’s lunch is below.
 
 
RECIPE: DIJON VINAIGRETTE

Dress your salad with a Dijon vinaigrette.

Ingredients

 
Whisk in a bowl or shake in a jar to combine.
 
 
UPGRADE FOR ST. PATRICK’S DAY

For St. Patrick’s Day, substitute Irish soda bread for everyday bread.

Add an Irish beer.

Beyond the well-known Guinness and Fuller’s beers, look for something new.

There’s a lot to choose from, including:

There’s not much mystery to it: bread and cheese were the basis of a poor person’s diet, and was what rural English labourers carried when they left the house [source].

A reference as far back as c.1394 mentions the traditional ploughman’s meal of bread, cheese and beer.

Meat was a luxury, so cheese provided the protein.

 
Over the years, the romance of “the rural life” led middle-class people to embrace the Ploughman’s Lunch. See if your local Irish pub offers it.

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*Branston pickle is a chutney typically made of carrots, cauliflower, gherkins, onions and rutabaga, pickled in a sauce of vinegar, tomato, apple and dates flavored with chutney spices such as mustard, coriander, garlic, cinnamon, pepper, cloves, nutmeg and cayenne pepper, plus sugar. British piccalilli is similar but tangier, less sweet, and colored bright yellow with turmeric.