Devonshire Meal Times

GOOD OLD DAYS AT STOCKLEIGH POMEROY IN 1815.

MEAL TIMES.

A wee-bit and breakfast,

A stay-bit and dinner,

A nummit and a crummit,

And a bit arter supper.

Could our forbears ever have known the joys of hunger ?

MEAL HOURS A.D. 1515.

To rise at five and dine at nine,

To sup at five and bed at nine,

Will make a man live to ninety-nine.

from:Sarah Hewett: Nummits and Crummits. devonshire Customs, Characteristics and Folk-lore, London: Tomas Burleigh, 1900

or:

“Haymakers are the hungriest folks out — ‘Fore-bit and Breakfast, Rear-bit and Dinner; Nummit and Crummit, And a Bit after Supper’ — that’s what they had when my mother was a maid, and that’s what they want to-day and for ever.” ... Perhaps, if Aunt Charity were alive now, she would lament for the good old times when haymakers expected their eight meals a day, and earned them.

Devonshire Idyls, by Miss H C O’Neill, 1892.