I am also a great fan of Tweedy, not only for his pub films, but also his Tweedy Outdoors You Tube channel, where he can be seen walking around marvellous parts of the country before settling down to spend the night sleeping in his tweed jacket, having cooked supper in a ditch. WC21 productions also recommended.
Huge fan of Tweedy's work! Haven't had a ploughman's in over 30 years but would be tucking in to one as soon as I'd dropped the luggage the next time I made it over. Perfect combination of simple, beautiful foods.
Hello Adam! I stumbled across this article today and wanted to leave a note to say thank you for the very kind words. It's a very nicely written piece - and I'm not just saying that because it is so flattering! You clearly have a talent for writing. Thanks again, this has made my day!
Hi Tweedy, I'm glad you found this piece. It's great to hear from you. Thanks very much for the kind words. Just by coincidence, my next piece, due out very soon, references your video on the ploughman's lunch.
Looking forward to it! That ploughman's lunch video really seemed to strike a chord - it was far and away the most viewed video I have ever made. I cannot claim any great insight on my part, it was something I just threw together on a whim, in response to a comment on an earlier video... and yet I suppose the timing was right. It's an erstwhile stalwart of pub food which has now fallen out of fashion, and I'm not sure its decline (or disappearance in some parts) has been discussed much.
As mentioned in the video I know it's often derided as being a marketing contrivance of the 1960s but I really think it's a bit more fundamental to English cuisine and culture than that. Japan has rice and miso soup. America has burger and fries. England has bread and cheese.
I lived in Japan for a while, almost two decades ago now. Prior to that I had probably taken all English things for granted. I was taken aback by how desperately homesick I was during my time away. When I returned to England for the first time after that, I headed straight to my grandmother's house. She didn't ask me what I wanted to eat, but instinctively produced a farmhouse loaf, a chunk of West country cheddar, and some onion chutney. It was essentially a Ploughman's, and one of the most memorable and beautiful meals I ever ate.
Sometimes things thrown together quickly yield more than time consuming projects. Apart from being to the point and detailed, that video's popularity may owe a lot to people yearning for authentic British food in the face of inexorable globalisation. It's interesting that every major supermarket still has a ploughman’s. I'm guessing that the Japanese are prouder of their distinctive culture than the British are permitted to be. My dissatisfaction at the diminished status of British food options on the high street has led me to create the Box Britain concept. Box Britain flips the concept of Box Park on its head. It is a place where the most quintessential British foods are found in one place. Box Park includes everything to the exclusion of British food and my idea was motivated by my disappointment at this. In such pieces, i try to eschew becoming political, but it is not always easy! For context, my next piece continues the theme and describes an imagined unit selling ploughman’s. I hope someone of means reads about it one day and considers it a viable business model. I am not against us having a choice of the best foreign food, but we have reached a point where very average fare from abroad dominates the high street. And then there are the endless fried chicken shops that it is difficult to avoid seeing nowadays.
I share your frustration at the difficulty of being able to even suggest that it might be culturally worthwhile to preserve English/British food and drink without inviting judgemental eye-rolling from a certain section of our society! Pretty much every other country I have spent time in (France, Italy, Japan, even America) does this with impunity - and rightly so.
If you ever set up a crowd funding exercise for Box Britain I would happily contribute! It just needs the right framing ("locally sourced" / "low food miles" etc) and then even that annoyingly judgemental cohort of society would probably be on board too.
I am also a great fan of Tweedy, not only for his pub films, but also his Tweedy Outdoors You Tube channel, where he can be seen walking around marvellous parts of the country before settling down to spend the night sleeping in his tweed jacket, having cooked supper in a ditch. WC21 productions also recommended.
Yes, Tweedy Outdoors is excellent too. He manages to make some decent convenience food also.
Huge fan of Tweedy's work! Haven't had a ploughman's in over 30 years but would be tucking in to one as soon as I'd dropped the luggage the next time I made it over. Perfect combination of simple, beautiful foods.
Hello Adam! I stumbled across this article today and wanted to leave a note to say thank you for the very kind words. It's a very nicely written piece - and I'm not just saying that because it is so flattering! You clearly have a talent for writing. Thanks again, this has made my day!
Hi Tweedy, I'm glad you found this piece. It's great to hear from you. Thanks very much for the kind words. Just by coincidence, my next piece, due out very soon, references your video on the ploughman's lunch.
Looking forward to it! That ploughman's lunch video really seemed to strike a chord - it was far and away the most viewed video I have ever made. I cannot claim any great insight on my part, it was something I just threw together on a whim, in response to a comment on an earlier video... and yet I suppose the timing was right. It's an erstwhile stalwart of pub food which has now fallen out of fashion, and I'm not sure its decline (or disappearance in some parts) has been discussed much.
As mentioned in the video I know it's often derided as being a marketing contrivance of the 1960s but I really think it's a bit more fundamental to English cuisine and culture than that. Japan has rice and miso soup. America has burger and fries. England has bread and cheese.
I lived in Japan for a while, almost two decades ago now. Prior to that I had probably taken all English things for granted. I was taken aback by how desperately homesick I was during my time away. When I returned to England for the first time after that, I headed straight to my grandmother's house. She didn't ask me what I wanted to eat, but instinctively produced a farmhouse loaf, a chunk of West country cheddar, and some onion chutney. It was essentially a Ploughman's, and one of the most memorable and beautiful meals I ever ate.
Sometimes things thrown together quickly yield more than time consuming projects. Apart from being to the point and detailed, that video's popularity may owe a lot to people yearning for authentic British food in the face of inexorable globalisation. It's interesting that every major supermarket still has a ploughman’s. I'm guessing that the Japanese are prouder of their distinctive culture than the British are permitted to be. My dissatisfaction at the diminished status of British food options on the high street has led me to create the Box Britain concept. Box Britain flips the concept of Box Park on its head. It is a place where the most quintessential British foods are found in one place. Box Park includes everything to the exclusion of British food and my idea was motivated by my disappointment at this. In such pieces, i try to eschew becoming political, but it is not always easy! For context, my next piece continues the theme and describes an imagined unit selling ploughman’s. I hope someone of means reads about it one day and considers it a viable business model. I am not against us having a choice of the best foreign food, but we have reached a point where very average fare from abroad dominates the high street. And then there are the endless fried chicken shops that it is difficult to avoid seeing nowadays.
I share your frustration at the difficulty of being able to even suggest that it might be culturally worthwhile to preserve English/British food and drink without inviting judgemental eye-rolling from a certain section of our society! Pretty much every other country I have spent time in (France, Italy, Japan, even America) does this with impunity - and rightly so.
If you ever set up a crowd funding exercise for Box Britain I would happily contribute! It just needs the right framing ("locally sourced" / "low food miles" etc) and then even that annoyingly judgemental cohort of society would probably be on board too.