THE LUNCH Brit workers’ average midday break But look what you can do with the office kettle, toaster & microwave
BUSY Britons are crying give us a break as they fall victim to the incredible shrinking lunch hour.
Pressure of work means that, far from sloping off for an hour, our average lunch now lasts 25 minutes and 24 seconds.
Only three years ago we were taking 33 minutes. Since then lunch has shrunk by nearly eight minutes, research for BBCC Radio 4’s Food Programme revealed.
The lost time off adds up to an extra ra 31 hours of work a year, or nearly fourur eight-hour days.
What’s more, lunch is getting boring.g. One in six people have eaten the same me lunch every day for at least two years – blaming a lack of inspiration and the need ed to save money.
A quarter of us always have a baconon or ham sandwich, while 22 per cent optpt for a cheese sandwich.
Cooked
Britain’s pre-packed lunch industry is worth £ 16.1billion a year. That’s an average of 200 sandwiches per person
But in the 1950s, six out of ten men in Britain went home to a cooked lunch of meat, vegetables and potatoes.
In those days most of them still called their lunch dinner – a hangover from ancient civilization. The habit of eating the main meal in the middle of the day goes back to Roman times.
Our meal times were shaped by daylight hours. Food historian Ivan Day explained: “The day was structured differently than it is today. People got up much earlier and went to bed much earlier as well.”
Then when the industrial revolution began, a meal in the middle of long shifts was needed to sustain workers – but most called it dinner.
Our word lunch may date back to the 17th century and be derived from the AngloSaxon “nuncheon”– a quick snack you could hold in your hands. Other suggestions are that it comes from “nuch” meaning a big piece of bread.
Which brings us to that l unchtime staple, the sandwich.
John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, ordered beef between ADULTS as well as children in Japan eat lunch from a bento box. A traditional bento container holds either rice, fish or meat, along with pickled or cooked vegetables.vegeta
Tiffin boxes
TIFFINS are Indian lunchboxes, traditionally round with three or four stacking stainless steel compartments.
They may include spicy vegetables, dhal, rice, yogurt, pickles, bread and pudding. SCHOOLCHILDREN in the Philippines eat lunches called baon, packed in containers that look similar to Tupperware. They may contain pork, fried fish, sausage or beef with boiled rice and vegetables. slices of bread while playing cardss 250 years ago – and inventeded a convenience meal. In the Second World War factory canteens fed workers.kers. But peace brought the Chorleywood process,ss, a cheap, fast way of producing ucing sliced bread which heraldedalded the era of the takeaway away sandwich. Today, as we grab a bitete to eat in front of our computer puter screens, “nuncheon” seemseems more apt for it than lunch. nch. FEELING bored with eating the same old standard lunches?
You don’t need to have a fully equipped kitchen to knock up simple and healthy meals, says a new book by Rachel Maylor.
All you need is a kettle, a toaster and a microwave and to POUR boiling water over the pasta in a bowl. Add a pinch of salt and pepper and cover the bowl with a plate for two to three minutes.
Add the garlic and fennel seeds, crushed with the back of a spoon, to a separate bowl. Chop the tomatoes in half and add to the bowl with the passata, oil and w m y coriander l bowl of sau clingfilm an 90 seconds
Drain the oil. Toss tog
Pour the garnish wit