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Ploughman's Lunch
A ploughman's lunch is a cold snack or meal, comprising at a minimum a thick piece of cheese (usually Cheddar, Stilton, or other local cheese), pickle (often Branston Pickle, sometimes piccalilli and/or pickled onions), crusty bap or chunk of bread, and butter. It is often accompanied by a green salad; other common additions are half an apple, celery, pâté, sliced hard-cooked egg or beetroot. It is a common menu item in English pubs, often shortened when ordering to 'a ploughman's.' The familiarity of the ploughman's lunch has led catering companies to describe a sandwich containing Cheddar, pickle and salad as a 'ploughman's sandwich.' The authentic ploughman's lunch consisted of stale bread or a crusty loaf, and an English Cheddar or Stilton, and some variety of pickle. An apple would be included with the lunch to take away the spicy taste of the pickle and to provide a sweet finish, perhaps to be complemented by cider. Ideally, the apple would be of the same variety as that the cider was made from.

Much doubt has been cast on the authenticity of the ploughman's lunch, not least by the 1983 film of that name starring Jonathan Pryce (scripted by Ian McEwan) in which it is claimed that the ploughman's was the invention of an advertising company in the 1950s that was trying to boost the habit of buying meals in British pubs. The question is: did the ploughman's exist (albeit without that name) before the ad agency, or was it all a fiction that drew on the other fiction of Merrie England? Just the sort of postmodern conundrum you can rely on Pynchon to serve up.

Fascinating, and we know Pynchon and McEwan are friends. (TRP borrowed at least one book from him once, The Heavenly City of the Eighteenth-Century Philosophers, a book which surely TRP read while composing Mason & Dixon). Here's wikipedia on the phrase--goes back to Sir Walter Scott--- and the history/controversy.
The Oxford English Dictionary dates this phrase back to at least 1837, in the book Memoirs of the life of Sir Walter Scott by John G. Lockhart; but this stray early use may have meant merely the sum of its parts, "a lunch for a ploughman".
Until recently, the OED's next citation was only from 1970, indicating a long period of time when the meal was virtually unknown in its native land. It is this long disuse and recent rediscovery that has led some people, such as the writer Ian McEwan (in his film The Ploughman's Lunch), to portray the dish as being a recent invention dressed up as a traditional meal.

Ploughman's Lunch was one of the expressions examined in the first series of the BBC 'Balderdash and Piffle' television program in 2006. The evidence for a 19th century origin proved to be rather inconclusive.

Staindrop
Staindrop is an attractive village near Raby Castle, former stronghold of the Nevills, and has always been associated with the Lords of Raby.

devoirs
expressions of respect: expressions or acts of courtesy and respect. It is French for 'duty', and as a verb it means must. It also denotes a school kid's home work.

Rockingham Whigs
After a decade of factional chaos,.., a new system emerged, with two separate opposition groups. The Rockingham Whigs claimed the mantle of "Old Whigs," as the purported successors of the party of the Pelhams and the great Whig families. With such noted intellectuals as Edmund Burke behind them, the Rockingham Whigs laid out a philosophy which for the first time extolled the virtues of faction, or at least their faction. Wikipedia [Please do linking for a Wikipedia reference -- not enough linking! Thanks.]

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Cock Lane Ghost
The story of the Cock Lane ghost attracted mass public attention in eighteenth-century England. Cock Lane is a short alleyway adjacent to London's Smithfield market and only a few minutes' walk from St Paul's Cathedral. The tall buildings and narrowness of this road give it a dark, foreboding presence and help to retain a sense of its origins as a medieval red-light district. In the eighteenth century this district housed London's working poor. It was this environment that, in January 1762, gave rise to an extraordinary scandal that engulfed all London. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_Lane_Ghost

Garrick, David (1717-79)
British actor; Garrick and [w.html#woffington">Woffington</a> were amorously linked and lived together from 1742-45. Apparently Woffington never married and the "Mrs." was more along the lines of an honorary title. Although Garrick married in 1749 and remained so until his death there seems some evidence that he retained an attachment to Woffington (e.g. he wore the shoe buckles she gave him until his death). He was also author of the play, Florizel and Perdita, "A Dramatic Pastoral, in Three Acts."; Garrick was also a pupil of Dr. Samuel Johnson and a member of his literary club, along with James Boswell and others. Garrick Quotes; 405

bum-boat
bumboat ( ) n. A small boat used to peddle provisions to ships anchored offshore. [Probably partial translation of Low German bumboot , ship's boat]

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Pope Joan
Pope Joan is the name of a female pope who supposedly reigned for less than two years in the 850s,[1] based on a legend that circulated in the Middle Ages.[citation needed] Pope Joan is regarded by most modern historians and religion scholars as fictitious, possibly originating as an anti-papal satire, but her existence is still debated. Wikipedia

Piquet
Piquet is a card game for two players, using a shortened pack of 32 cards which omits 2 to 6 in each suit. In ascending order, the cards rank 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, A (high). A number of French terms are traditionally used for various features of the game and these are included below.
A game consists of a set of 6 deals called a partie, with the deal alternating. Each player is dealt 12 cards, with 8 left as a talon. A deal consists of three parts: discarding a number of cards and replacing them from the talon to try to improve the hand, declaring various features in the hand, and then playing the cards in tricks.
Piquet is a very old game. It was well established by 1650 with similar rules to the present ones (it differed in using a 36 card pack with a 12 card talon, elder hand being allowed to change 7 cards, and a partie was ended by the first to reach 100, a variant still sometimes played). It was mentioned by Rabelais in 1535 although whether this was the same game is unclear. It has retained its popularity to the present day as one of the best and most skilful card games for two players. The rules described are those published by Cavendish in 1882.

A parlour game is a group game played indoors. During the Victorian era in Great Britain and in the USA, these games were extremely popular among the upper and middle classes. They were often played in a parlour, hence the name.
There are a variety of historic Parlour Games and Pynchon here seems to be defining this one in the subsequent lines. But one old possibly relevant version for M & D was called Consequences: Consequences is an old parlour game similar to the surrealist game exquisite corpse or Mad Libs.[1]

Each person takes a turn choosing a word for one of six questions, in this order.

Man's name

Woman's name

Place name

A comment

Another comment

An outcome

Then the story is read: #1 met #2 at #3, and he said #4, she said #5, and the consequence was #6. In some versions of the game the man gets to reply to the woman, thus the consequence moves to #7. Another version includes 'the world said' at #7, which is meant to represent the response of the public to the consequence.

This exact phrase is repeated in Against the Day. P. 567 "four-door farce". One of the recurring physical jokes in such plays involves sets with many doors and people coming in and out, just missing each other. A French writer, George Feydeau, was famous for writing them at the time of ATD, which makes the possible pun on his last name--Feydeau, four-door--anachronous in M & D but still resonant, perhaps. See a modern example, Peter Bogdanovich's What's Up Doc?, the movie.

Some of us are Outlaws, and some Trespassers upon the very world
Pynchonian thematic....of course, Trespassers are part of the plot of Against The Day.

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Morning Tussah
tus·sah (tŭs'ə, tŭs'ô') also tus·sore (tŭs'ôr', -ōr') n. An Asian silkworm, the larva of a large saturniid moth (Antheraea paphia), that produces a coarse brownish or yellowish silk. The silk produced by this worm or a fabric woven from it. [Hindi tasar, from Sanskrit tasaram, shuttle (probably from the shape of its cocoon).]

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buzz-men
slang for pickpockets

Prie-Dieux
custom-built Church kneelers

quotinoctian
occurring every night

Annotation Index