In 1961 the Milk Marketing Board, beset by struggling cheese sales, distributed 5,000 cards to pubs encouraging people to try the traditional ploughmans lunch: bread, cheese and ale.

The name was new, but the basic ingredients predated modern English spelling. In the 14th-century poem Piers Ploughman, a character spoils bred and ale, buttre, melk and chese so it myghte serve no man. By 1891, the ploughmen of Forfar were so outraged to be given something that was not bread and cheese that they sued their employer and won.

Thanks to the ad men of the 1960s, the ploughmans lunch was elevated from peasants sustenance to bourgeois pub fare (cornichons, anyone?), and with that, the price rose. In a pub frequented by Adrian Bell

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Anatomy of a Ploughman's: the hidden costs behind your lunch - The Times