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.