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The Brummie for Lunch?

Flypress

Trainee Brummie
Hello All,

This should be a very easy one to answer - what, if there is one, is the traditional word for lunch please? Often it is of course dinner; in southeast England it can be 'snap', in the northeast 'bait' - how about in the middle?

Thanks

Graham
 
We always say going for a bite to eat. Welcome to the forum flypress I am sure you will enjoy it on here. Jean.
 
Welcome to the forum Graham.

I don't think they have words for it in Brum as they are so busy getting tucked in that they can't speak!
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From when i remember after my birth in 1929 it was always "dinner" after starting work it was dinner when you came home at night, "Snap" was a Miners name for the food he ate when he was down the pit. Len.
 
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I was born in North staffs and well remember my Mom or Mam as she was called then putting my Dads Snap in his Snap tin before he went down the pit.
We had dinner at 12.30/1 0'clock usually sandwiches but the cooked meal was tea except on Sunday when dinner was first then tea.
 
cant be sure on this one but i think ive heard the word scrag used to desbribe food...

lyn
 
Breakfast was often non existent, what you had at mid-day was 'dinner', around 12-1 was dinnertime, hence school dinners, then if you were really lucky it was bread and jam for 'tea', if times were hard it was bread and marge or dripping.
 
I think Scrag Lyn may be to do with meat Scrag-end i often heard, also cagmag was a word used for rubbish meat. My old man called it scran for food he took to work, but as people have mentioned its a mining word, and he had grafted in the mines at one time. Max
 
Cant understand all this confusion, in working class Brum its/was always dinner, as in stopping for school dinners, not school lunch or school midday meal.
Only posh people called it lunch.

All round Tamworth food in general seems to be called snap, which I think originated from a north eastern regiments 'snapsack' a bag with snap fasteners.
 
I think 'snap' was a word used mostly by miners; as was a 'Dudley' for a water-bottle. Wherever there were mines, the name was commonly used; except that is, in the North-East, where 'bait' was the usual term.

I sometimes heard the term 'viands' used in the older industrial parts of the Black Country. Similarly so 'cog-noggers' for thick sandwiches; and especially so for 'fittles' as a snack....as in: ''puc up yoewer fittles an tay affowa yo goo''
 
A 'snap' was indeed used by miners, and was a pressed tin box with a snap closure to keep the dust and muck out. 'Snap' is still used around the Black Country for a quick meal, or a snack.

'Viands' is from the French for 'meat', but used to describe any kind of food. 'Vittles' is from 'victuals', also a general term for grub of any description. Never heard 'cog-nogger' before, even though I spent years working in the Black Country. A thick sandwich was usually referred to as a doorstep. A 'piece' in our house was an inch-thick slice of bread spread with Stork, a real artery clogger.

When I was younger I had a rather posh girl-friend from Four Oaks whose family invited me for 'supper'. Now being an ordinary Brummie, 'supper' to me meant something scoffed last thing at night - in my case, for preference, dripping-toast with some Marmite. My posh bird's family used 'supper' as 'dinner' or evening meal - on that auspicious occasion I got a roast dinner, the beef burned to a cinder and the veg boiled to a soggy mess.

Big Gee
 
Its strange how the word "sandwich" has replaced the Brummie (and Scots) use of the word "Piece" perhaps Big Gee we have all got posh like your old girlfriend . Max
 
I always used Sarnie never Piece or Piecie so must have been in between.

I recall my Mom saying that when she worked with some girls from the Black Country - when she was on Munitions at IMI - that at midday they used to ask her "Ay you gorra bit of Dog"? Has anyone heard this before?
 
Hi Max.

When I was a sprog a 'piece' was never a sandwich - just a slice of bread. My Scots mate still uses 'piece' to describe a sandwich, though.

I think 'sarnie' is Liverpool, probably down to interviews with the Beatles in the 1960's. Same as 'buttie' - never heard down here until Paul McCartney used the expression.

If he saw us with a doorstop in our mit, my dad would say, "Oi, you got summick wrong with yer 'and?"

Favourite doorstop in my youth was two 1" thick slices of bread liberally spread with marge + corned beef sliced a good quarter-inch thick and - joy of joys! - Branston Pickle! Still relished in this house. Funny how in the old days Spam was considered beneath our dignity, but these days I always have at least one large tin of Spam in the fridge.

Big G

Big G
 
HI LEN
Yes i do have to agree with you on that word Snap . as it was used by old coal miners
and i do know for certain , because my brother inlaw and his fellow brothers the Lloyds family
whom still live in there tiny little villlage of coal minors houses in a little place called bermuda villa
nuneaton , they are like little dolls house very small indeed
they are under the listed act and can never be demolished by order as one local building found out
not so long ago in the area they demolished surrounding area but they cannot touch the village of about fifty
houses that are orinional houses of coal miners, that as been there since the first coal mine was
ever found my brother inlaw is in is late 70,s and his fore fathers was the orinional house holder
from the year dot ;he as older brothers whom are even older than him
they are still big strong active men you would think they are only fifty but in thee eighties
when we visit the sister inlaw they use that word snap ; for lunch when i first heard him speak and call it that i had to laugh and he told me the excact word what you have stated and it is used by miners when down the mine
and all the brothers still used that word
the Lloyed brothers are well known around the nuneaton town and in coventry like there fathers
sadley the mines have gone so there sons cannot be miners
the one son is leading fireman at nuneaton fire station
have a nice day every body best wishes Astonian ;;
 
Noun. Food, especially a snack, occasionally a packed lunch. [Northern and Midlands use/dialect?
 
So no ones family here were takers of " high tea ". Its good to know the Aristo s have not arrived yet.My first mrs who came from a Nottingham family of miners called it snap. Out in the boonies of west Shopshire and Herefordshire I have never heard it called much else than " Break " or " Sarnies". East Shropshire having a longer and bigger industrial heritage may have its own terms.
 
It is funny how things change and you don't even realize, when i was a child we always called the meal at midday dinner,as someone said school dinners,but now i always refer to it as lunch,and the evening meal dinner,and if you eat after that its supper,
and we used to call the evening meal tea,
 
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WELL CAROL
you was lucky then when we was lucky to get any think
normal bread and jam ,or bread and sop . and on a really good day if the old man provided
we would get mash and tripe from thompsons the butchers
and what youposh people call a sweet or desert , with an extra bonus dear old mrs gough
would make a couple of large fruit cakes for another neibour and her daughter in law mrs gammage
and as i said a bonus was abit of mrs gough cracking cake
whilst the old man tucked into his roast beef or lamb dinner or a special cook by mother
whom often went with out her meal so the old man had steak and mushrooms
those were the days my friends, you can bet your last pound we do not go with out now
my dutchess and my sons whom are great big lads at home eat well
and my old man as long gone ,passed away march 30th 1958 ; thank god ;
best wishes to you all Astonian;;
 
No Alf I cannot find "Sarnies " in the Oxford English Dictionary either. I will put it down to Custom and Use and hope it will make there if I use it often enough. But that's what I had for mid day break for 40 years , whether or not it actually consisted of sandwiches. With the advent of the Micro-wave Oven it often was not but it was still " Sarnies ".
 
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