I tried again with the "Ploughman's lunch", but they were pretty much the same at all the pubs I tried.(Perhaps a standard ordered from above----- this was back in the days of "tied houses")
Hmm, probably not centrally ordered.
Back in those days the
typical arrangement in England with tied and managed houses was that the food side of the business, if there was any at all, was entirely the business of the tenant or manager. I won't say it was universally like that, but it certainly was for the tenants/managers I knew personally. A well run food side to the pub could bring in as much money or more than the booze side, especially in managed houses.
I knew a couple, Joyce and Dave, who managed a Courage pub (the Crown in Cowley Road, Uxbridge) who made about double their brewery salaries from running a decent food set-up. When they rotated out, which Courage seemed to do with their managers every five years or so, the new manager wasn't interested in doing food at all - it completely changed the pub overnight. Back when 'Auntie' Joyce was there if you were a regular you could get fed even outside official food serving hours. One evening Chris and I got back from a job late, were bloody hungry and Joyce had had a hard day too so wasn't in the mood to go back into the kitchen. Her solution to Chris's wheedling "Oh, please Auntie Joyce, please." was to push the the bar flap up and say "You know where the kitchen is. Feed yourself!". We did. Great pub, a sad day when Dave and Joyce moved on.