Lunch at a good country pub will, I suspect, soon become something of a rarity. This is chiefly because good country pubs are themselves disappearing with frightening rapidity (good urban ones too, for that matter). Many of the survivors hardly conform to the pattern I remember from my youth - places to eat, drink and be merry across the social strata. Now they seem to be split between places where the middle-classes eat (they usually style themselves 'gastropubs') and tacky boozers that would once have been called 'spit and sawdust' but for which no adequate term now exists.

The Plough at Finstock is a happy survivor of pubs as I used to love them (except that it is of course impossible now to enjoy the smell of tobacco smoke mingling with the smoke from the logs as you sit before the fire in the little snug bar - but there are other ways of enjoying smoke, as we shall see presently). Mark Range and co-tenant Joe McCorry (who does the cooking) offer an adventurous assortment of freshly prepared dishes, many of them made from locally sourced ingredients. They also cater for their drinking customers with a good selection of real ales and ciders. There is even a Herefordshire Country Perry.

The presence of the pump clip for this drink below one for Weston's Old Rosie scrumpy caused some amusement on our visit. Could our 'Old Rosie' (whose surname is Perry) be persuaded to sample one, or the equally appropriate other? Rosemarie said she preferred to stick to the Sauvignon Blanc (French), as indeed did Robert and I. But Michael, the fourth member of our party, tried the Old Rosie, and found it hit the spot.

With a table booked for 1pm and the food section of the pub (all tables reserved) beginning to fill up, we placed our orders while standing at the bar in order to be ahead of the rush. Soon Joe had worked his magic in the kitchen, and it was time to take our seats. There was a selection of four or five dishes at the different stages of the meal, which meant we were able to cover a significant part of the menu.

In respect of the starters, all four were tried. Mine was smoked chicken, served with a crunchy celeriac remoulade containing capers and gherkins. This is the welcome taste of smoke I alluded to earlier. The chicken came, I noted with interest, from the Barrington Estate smokery, about which I knew already, having read an early version of Helen Peacocke's article which appears on Page 20 today. The chicken was moist and full of flavour. I suppose we must enjoy such tastes while we can. After the recent bacon 'scare', we will no doubt shortly be told all smoked food is bad for us.

Rosemarie had an excellent carrot and toasted cumin soup (each serving of which sends a 25p donation to Finstock School in support of a healthy eating campaign). She particularly enjoyed the accompanying bread. Michael had sautéed tiger prawns with lemon, garlic and parsley, while Robert savoured the pleasure of old-fashioned potted brown shrimps, which came with a well-dressed salad featuring sun-dried cherry tomatoes.

He and Michael both went for further traditional delight in the day's Sunday roast - prime West Oxfordshire beef, with Yorkshire pudding, red wine gravy, roast vegetables (parsnips, celeriac and butternut squash), carrot batons and fine beans. All was much enjoyed, although for perfection they would have preferred the meat a little less well done.

d=3,3,1There was no problem on this score with my slices of roast fillet of venison, which were served beautifully pink, with a red wine and juniper sauce, on a bed of rösti potatoes, with a julienne of leek and carrots. The meat was from a roe deer raised at Daylesford. Rosemarie enjoyed bangers, mash, and onion gravy, with sausages made in nearby Chadlington.

Nobody had a lot of room for anything else, though we all picked at a plate of excellent cheese (cheddar and Stilton). Robert had tangy crepes suzette. I regret to say his choice led me to tell the silly joke about a Scots lass called Suzette who, when asked if she would like a crepe suzette, replied: "Och nae; I had one afore I came oot."