Each week, my Meal of the Week feature examines an airline meal from my travels over the years. This may be a meal from earlier in the week or it may be a meal served over a decade ago.
I was introduced to something new on my last British Airways flight…
For years I have enjoyed afternoon tea on British Airways flights…something I’ve written about before and look forward to. But when I flew from London to Frankfurt a couple weeks ago in the afternoon, I decided to try something different.
Now let’s take a step back for a moment. British Airways has re-invested in its business class product including its shorthaul catering. Starting late last year, BA introduced a choice of meals on shorthaul flights. For years, if you travelled on BA in the afternoon it was afternoon tea or afternoon tea. But now you’ll have a true choice…plus the option of ordering special meals.
But while I like to think of myself as fairly knowledgable of British English, I got thrown for a curve when the FA asked if I wanted afternoon tea or “a Ploughman’s.”
A Ploughman’s?
A what? Admittedly, I had to look it up.
Per Wikipedia:
A ploughman’s lunch is an English cold meal which is based on bread, cheese, and onions, and usually accompanied by butter and some form of pickle. Additional items such as ham, green salad, hard boiled eggs and apple can be added.
Rather than ask the FA what a Ploughman was I just ordered it. I figured that even if it was not good, at least it would be different pictures than the dozens of afternoon tea pictures I had.
The meal arrived…and I was pleasantly surprised. There were no onions, but some cold cuts, a tomato, cheese, preserves, a Branston Pickle, and a half Scotch Egg (hard boiled egg wrapped in sausage meat, coated in bread crumbs and baked or deep-fried).
Quite honestly, I enjoyed it very much and still received my beloved warm scone with clotted cream.
Throw in a cup of tea with lemon and two bags of almonds and I was quite content with my late lunch.
CONCLUSION
I learned something new. I now know what “a Ploughman’s” is. And I’ll order it again.
Afternoon tea or a Ploughman’s for you?
It’s not a “ploughman”, it is a “ploughman’s” any body offering you a “ploughman” is either not a native speaker of British English or quite frankly odd. There is indeed pickle on that plate; “Branston pickle” and “Piccalilli” (the brown and yellow condiments). Again you might need to google. I thought you had family in England – this is pretty basic stuff.
Thanks Evan. I do indeed have extended family in the London area and I am embarrassed I did not previously know what a Ploughman’s was.
see it a lot in pubs. good stuff.
Available in every pub in the country, and in dozens of countries around the world. It’s beyond gross; add pickled onion, even more so.
I love ploughman’s lunches though would have been disappointed without the pickled onion and would have preferred a nice aged cheddar over blue cheese. The little piece of Battenberg cake is a great British touch too. Well done BA!
Ha! What next? Spotted Dick?
I knew what this was because I had a Ploughman’s at a pub in Bermuda. The Bermuda version was slightly different, as it included a pork pie, whole pickled onion, carrots, apples, grapes, Cheddar and Stilton cheeses, and a baguette. The only common item with yours was the Branston pickle. From what I understand, the exact ingredients vary from place to place. In any event, I’d be quite happy to find a Ploughman’s on the menu. Very British and thus glad to see BA offering it.
Also, I’d like to make a request. If you’re going to write stories about stuff like the AI food incident, PLEASE refrain from using a photo of food with a cockroach in it as your featured image! It’s disgusting, and there’s no way to avoid looking at it when pulling up your page. Frankly I very nearly barfed when I saw it.
I apologize for the cockroach image, but I could not resist…what a juxtaposition. I just cannot bring myself to fly Air India. It’s a horrid fear that I will be ingesting something horrible.
If you want to hear something ironic, historically some Indians preferred AI BECAUSE of the food. Until the ME3 came around, they were perhaps the only airline where you could consistently get proper Indian food, especially veg. I can’t tell you how many inedible “Indian vegetarian” meals my mom and sisters have had to suffer through on other carriers.
C’mon! You eat sausages , so you’ve had far, far worse than a cockroach.
As a side note, British people will be recoiling in horror that you took your tea with a slice of lemon, with the possible exception if it is Earl Grey.
Continental Europeans often take breakfast tea with lemon, Brits with milk.
I’m British and I drink my tea with lemon. But my mom is Polish so that’s probably where I got this habit. My dad who is British drinks tea exclusively with milk.