The new roast rules: how chicken replaced beef as the nation's favourite Sunday lunch

[#Dobe~ClasSy!☠]

here's nothing quite as quintessentially British as roast beef. As early as 1748, William Hogarth was using it to taunt the French in his paintings, with 'O the Roast Beef of Old England' portraying Britain's wealth and power via a huge chunk of beef; a scrawny Frenchman nearby tucks into a meal of onion soup.

During the Industrial Revolution beef became a symbol of wealth and national identity among the emerging middle classes, to the extent that the French coined the apparently insulting sobriquet 'les rosbifs'. But perhaps it's time the nickname changed to 'les ros-chicks'?