It’s behind a paywall, but the headline is funny.
Now cancel culture comes for the ploughman’s lunch
Devon pub plumps for ‘ploughperson’s’ lunch in tongue-in-cheek rebrand to reflect gender-neutral sensitivities
ByJack Hardy28 March 2022 • 1:28pm
Having survived for generations, the ploughman’s lunch is now being forced to adapt in the modern world CREDIT: clubfoto/iStockphoto
It is a meal that served as a staple of the English labourer’s diet for centuries and has grown to be considered among the most quintessential of pub food.
But although the devilishly simple combination of bread, cheese and onion has helped
the ploughman’s lunch survive the generations, it is now, finally, being forced to adapt in the modern world.
And so it is that the traditional dish has been given a rebranding to make it more befitting of a gender-neutral age, at a pub in the Dartmoor village of Belstone, Devon, much to the bemusement of some social media users.
The Tors pub now offers what it has described on its menu as the “ploughperson’s” lunch, for a mere £12.50.
It still contains all the ingredients associated with the conventional ploughman’s lunch – cheese, ham, pickled onions, chutney and sourdough bread – suggesting nothing was thought to be wrong with the original dish itself.
Instead, it appears that a name that can be traced back as far as 1837 – when John Gibson Lockhart referred to “a lunch for a ploughman” in Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott – has been identified as a pitfall that could lead to the dish being cancelled, prompting it to be changed forthwith.
A picture of the pub’s menu, complete with the new name of the dish, was posted on social media by Charlotte Deakins, 36, who tweeted:
The world is off its rocker and quite frankly I’m sick of it.
pic.twitter.com/o6sSBQWOk8
— Charlotte, The Baroness of Burnley (@CharlotteEmmaUK)
March 27, 2022
Her picture quickly went viral as members of the public shared her despair that one of Britain’s best-loved meals appeared to be
falling victim to cancel culture.
Ms Deakins even posted a link to the menu on the pub’s website, in case anyone did not believe that the picture was genuine.
On Sunday night, she told The Telegraph: “Quite frankly, my reaction is that it is pandering and dangerous, unless the pub owners have done it in a tongue-in-cheek manner and I hope they have.
“The tweet has gained some traction and people are absolutely sick of the nonsense and having to pussyfoot around because of a small minority who are eternally offended.”
The backlash soon appeared to be spreading to the online reviews of the pub, where a one-star review was posted on Sunday by one individual.
They said, simply: “[They] don’t sell ploughman’s lunch.”
Dicky Harrison, the landlord of The Tors pub, said on Sunday that he had been startled to see how much attention the renamed dish had received.
He told The Telegraph: “The menu item was just meant as a bit of tongue in cheek. We live in a farming community with amazing women and men farming the land. It’s just a bit of fun and a nod to the amazing ladies who work the land here. I didn’t think it would cause offence, but in reality, women plough too!”
Changing names for changing times
The ploughman’s lunch joins an ever-growing list of dishes and products that have been forced to change their names after criticism.
Last June, Waitrose announced it was relabelling its own-brand Kaffir lime leaves following complaints from customers that it was racist.
The word “kaffir”, which is also a slur used to describe black African people in South Africa, was removed from the ingredient’s packaging and replaced with “makrut”.
Similarly, Marks & Spencer was forced to change the name of the canned version of the
pornstar martini cocktail, after feminist campaigners complained it was
“normalising porn”. It is now sold as the Passion Star Martini.
The retailer had to make another rebrand earlier this year after it was deemed that
Midget Gems, its popular variety of sweets, might offend people with dwarfism.
Marks & Spencer changed the name of the fruit gums to Mini Gems, following a campaign launched by Dr Erin Pritchard of Liverpool Hope University, who has achondroplasia, a form of short-limbed dwarfism.
Dr Pritchard said in a newspaper interview at the time: “I’m grateful that M&S has been willing to listen to the concerns of people with dwarfism and has gone ahead with the rebranding.”
