Don’t scoff at lunch
A midday meal away from the desk leaves us happier and more productive
I have often mused that if John Montagu, PC, FRS (1718-92), had dwelt on his sartorial appearance, and Lieutenant-General James Brudenell, KCB (1797 — 1868) had thought more about his stomach, we would today be eating cardigans and wearing sandwiches. They were earls of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries who bequeathed to us, in addition to years of service to their country, two everyday items subsequently named after their ennobled titles. As well as giving his title to a series of islands, the 4th Earl of Sandwich happily devised a method of suppressing his hunger whilst gambling, whilst the 7th Earl of Cardigan invented an extra layer of clothing with which to battle winters in the Crimea. When I was younger, though I suspect no longer, the friendly policeman on his beat was always a “Bobbie,” after Sir Robert Peel, then Home Secretary who in 1829 established the London Metropolitan Constabulary. All three became metonyms, a wider thing or general concept referred to by the name of its creator.
World history has given us plenty of similar bequests from titles and surnames, including those wide but perfectly symmetrical necktie knots handed down to us by the late Duke of Windsor, the rigid airships invented by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (1838-1917), and the first commercially viable ballpoint pen conceived by Hungarian Mr László József Bíró (1899 — 1985). This is not to forget Mercedes Jellinek, whose christian name was borrowed by Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft to sell their horseless carriages, Louis, Marcel and Fernard who established the Société Renault Frères on 25 February 1899, the devices of Émile Peugeot, French manufacturer of steam-powered tricycles, Édouard and André Michelin, formerly farm implement vendors who from 1891 gave us pneumatic tyres and eventually restaurant guides, and Henry Ford, Ferdinand Porsche, and Enzo Ferrari, who between them have met our desires for motorised propulsion.
French labour law actually prohibits workers from eating lunch in their workplace
Join Britain’s most civilised publication.
![]()
Subscribe NowChallenge the consensus. Access rigorous analysis.
It was on 5 July 1841 that Mr Thomas Cook organised a return train journey for 500 at a shilling a head from Leicester to a teetotal meeting in Loughborough, whilst aviation pioneers such as Thomas Sopwith, Ukrainian Oleg Antonov, Franco-Bavarian Claude Dornier, German designers Willy Messerschmitt and Ernst Heinkel, the Russian Pavel Sukhoi, William E. Boeing’s early seaplane of 1916, and the many early aeroplanes associated with the Dutch aviation pioneer Anthony Fokker (1890-1939) have given us the advances in military and civil travel we enjoy today. Then we might consider computer security software devised by the late John McAfee, the rotatable plastic puzzle of Ernő Rubik, headgear manufactured by John B. Stetson (1830 — 1906), the execution method originally constructed in West Yorkshire and known as the Halifax Gibbet, but when adopted in France in 1789, took the name of its proposer, Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, who was concerned to deliver judicially-awarded death in a more humane manner. There is the waterline painted on a ship’s hull indicating its maximum safe draught, brought into law in 1876 and brainchild of Mr Samuel Plimsoll, the telegraph code invented in 1837 by another Samuel (Morse) which in turn influenced the safety of the first British transatlantic steamship mail contract, awarded earlier to a third Samuel (Cunard) in 1839.
In the world of war and military campaigning, it was Lieutenant Henry Shrapnel of the Royal Engineers who perfected a method of dispersing lead shot from artillery ammunition in 1784; General Sam Browne VC (1824-1901) who had lost his left arm to a sword cut and ever after found it difficult to draw his weapon, devised a leather belt with a supporting strap that passes over the right shoulder to compensate; whilst the Swedish chemist, inventor, engineer and businessman, Alfred Bernhard Nobel, not only invented dynamite but bequeathed his fortune to establish a wide range of prizes, first awarded in 1901. The revolvers of that son of Connecticut, Samuel Colt, and one-time producer of English sporting guns in Birmingham, Philip Webley, shotguns of James Purdey, and weaponry of the Anglo-American Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, North Carolinian Richard Jordan Gatling, Austrian Gaston Glock, Russian Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov and Israeli Major Uziel “Uzi” Gal have all immeasurably perfected the art of killing our fellow men. There is no rhyme or reason as to why these names have survived and become generic words, metonyms, but however much I might wish it, I’m sure dwellers of future centuries are not fated to eat, drink, drive, shoot or wear a “Caddick”.
However, of all these surnames or titles which have entered the English language as shorthand for a consumer product or service, as in taking a Cook’s Tour, shopping at Sainsbury’s or Harrod’s, sipping a Martini or Buck’s Fizz, using a biro or hoover, climbing a Munro or a Wainwright, consulting the Dewey system for a Baedeker, Debrett’s, Kennedy, Pevsner or Wisden, firing shrapnel, a Gatling or a Glock, piloting a Dornier or Fokker, driving a Ford or Ferrari, eating off Wedgwood, wearing a cardigan,
Sam Browne, wellingtons, or Windsor knot, and are with us still, it was the word sandwiches, uttered by Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch in a recent interview with The Spectator, that caught my attention. She observed, “Lunch is for wimps. I have food brought in and I work and eat at the same time. There’s no time. Sometimes I will get a steak. I’m not a sandwich person. I don’t think sandwiches are a real food, it’s what you have for breakfast,” adding she would “not touch bread if it’s moist”.
The Fourth Earl must be revolving at speed in his grave. Clearly, the delights of generous layers of marmalade and melted butter on hot toast, or baguettes stuffed with fine cheese, ham or beef and garnished with garden greenery, have escaped the Badenoch household’s attention. Immediately the issue became politicised when Sir Keir Starmer, on being asked about her comments, asserted the sandwich was “a great British institution. I am quite happy with a sandwich lunch, with tuna, or occasionally a cheese toastie”. Badenoch wrote on social media, “The PM has time to respond to my jokes about lunch but no time for the farmers who produce our food.”
In misquoting Wall Street and thinking as she does, our Kemi is overlooking two crucial points, one legal, the other social. Our own Working Time Regulations 1998, Regulation 12, stipulate — depending on your age, type and place of work — that an interlude for food of a minimum 20 minutes in an eight hour day is mandatory. Across the Herring Pond, our Canadian brethren have nailed down this lunchtime intermission in terms of one 30-minute meal break for every 5 consecutive hours of work, whilst you cannot be forced to eat at your desk or work. In Poland full time employees are guaranteed a minimum 15-minute pause for food that counts as paid work time, whilst Germans have to take a 30-minute break that doesn’t count as work time. Laws in Australia are designed to protect workers’ well-being whilst also benefiting employers through improved employee work performance and morale, meaning time-out of between 30-60 minutes.
French labour laws go so far as to have initiated a cultural code that actually prohibits workers from eating lunch in their workplace and encourages the shunning of a solo midday meal in favour of a change of pace, and scenery. We might raise eyebrows at what has become a ninety-minute-minimum pause centred on bistros, but it’s widely held that the interruption leads to better mental health and can make a workforce more productive. After the loneliness of Covid, my Parisian friends also assert there’s the greater philosophical point that the break is not just good for individuals or the companies they work for, but it benefits wider society. People who eat together can discuss issues, tease out tensions and create a culture in which different points of view are to be praised. The foodie recess is now seen as a driver of conviviality, a place for bouncing ideas around, serendipity, and a public good.
The same is true in Italy where the sacred moment has a name, the pausa pranzo (lunch pause) and is a long-standing tradition of working life. When the clock strikes dodici or uno, folk head home or into a nearby osteria and relax for a generous hour (or sometimes three) with good food and company. The same holds true in Spain, where many institutions close for an extended lunchtime breather. In both countries, don’t even bother to call, for all the smaller establishments will have locked their doors and flipped the sign reading chiuso or cerrado. I appreciate we can’t all leave the premises at lunchtime, and although Swiss law doesn’t specifically say that you must go home or to a restaurant to eat, on the other hand, it also says you are not allowed to skip lunch and other breaks “because this could lead to mistakes or accidents at work”. However, the compulsory aspect of downtime for déjeuner shouldn’t distract from the pleasures of pausing.
Sometimes this can be as simple as a wander along a riverbank, a bimble amongst the backstreets to discover new eateries or search for a rush of culture in a gallery, museum or bookshop, which all experience their greatest footfall between 12 and 2. Living by the pen I’m only too aware of writer’s block. There is always that delicate balance to be struck between carrying on and finishing a piece of work, and taking a break, letting one’s mind carry on with the process, and producing even better prose. Thus, I always create a pause before hitting the “send” button, and if possible — deadlines from The Critic and others permitting — also sleep on what I have written and send it on the morrow.
In a wider sense, according to the Harvard Business Review, well-rested and refreshed employees are happier, healthier, more productive, with the act of physically leaving the workplace sufficiently rejuvenating that they return to work almost always reset and better adjusted to plough on through the afternoon. Whilst I’m not suggesting an abrupt change of culture to eat measured in the Italian or Spanish way of several hours, I fear Ms Badenoch sets us a poor example. Her encouragement to think that our midday meal is somehow unimportant, is irresponsible, never mind illegal. In short, as General George Patton, who was no wimp, used to say, she is trying to push spaghetti uphill. Nor can I see her concept of the non-sandwich, or non-lunch, catching on. It might just be remembered as “doing a Badenoch,” but for all the wrong reasons.
