Roast beef had been a British tradition for centuries and was enjoyed at least occasionally by all classes, to the extent that the French nickname for the Brits was 'rosbifs' - while we called them 'frogs'! My mother recalled that as a child in the 1920s she was generally sent to the local butcher as late as possible on Saturday afternoons to buy a cut-price joint. In those days few shops had refrigeration, so the butcher would want to clear his stock at bargain prices before closing for the weekend. At home, what was left over from the 'Sunday joint' was used to make things like brawn, mince and sausages, and the surplus fat served as 'dripping' which was layered onto bread as a cheap breakfast or supper. A typical meat and veg dinner would not have been acceptable in the cabin class dining rooms, where something more sophisticated would be expected though it might contain many of the same basic ingredients. 'Roast meat', incidentally, is a term which traditionally applied only to meat which had been cooked over an open fire. What we now refer to as roast meat is generally baked in an oven.
