| A Slap Up Meal. 01:27 - Dec 18 with 3769 views | Boston |
An American lady I know recently asked me to enlighten her on this British phrase, and y'know, I had no clue as to its meaning, well, barring that it refers to a large well cooked hearty dinner that really hits the spot. I've cheated and wiki'd, but it still doesn't produce a definitive answer.
Anyway, left me thinking what meal these words conjure up in my mind, and although I enjoy a very wide range of food, there is but one that fits the bill, good old steak, chips, peas and onions.
What's yours? |  |
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| A Slap Up Meal. on 02:39 - Dec 18 with 3683 views | numptydumpty |
Full English !!! |  |
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| A Slap Up Meal. on 06:49 - Dec 18 with 3567 views | Dorse |
Whenever I hear the phrase 'slap up' meal, I picture a cut of meat being fried or grilled. So maybe it's because you 'slap' it on a flat pan / griddle as a cut rather than roast or deep fry?
Dunno, either way, my mental image is of a mixed grill, onion rings, chips and a pint the morning after a big night. |  |
| 'What do we want? We don't know! When do we want it? Now!' |
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| A Slap Up Meal. on 08:14 - Dec 18 with 3430 views | hubble |
I know you have to be careful these days when attempting 'humour', so I'll try to phrase this correctly, but I was just thinking that if a follicly challenged person who identified as male took a person of allegedly loose morals who identified as female out for a hearty meal, you'd have a slap-head taking a slapper out for a slap-up. |  |
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| A Slap Up Meal. on 09:25 - Dec 18 with 3277 views | davman |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 08:14 - Dec 18 by hubble |
I know you have to be careful these days when attempting 'humour', so I'll try to phrase this correctly, but I was just thinking that if a follicly challenged person who identified as male took a person of allegedly loose morals who identified as female out for a hearty meal, you'd have a slap-head taking a slapper out for a slap-up. |
... and if he got lucky, there'd be a bit of "slap and tickle" (c) Carry On at the end of the night... |  |
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| A Slap Up Meal. on 09:26 - Dec 18 with 3275 views | dmm |
Wasn't it the phrase that Billy Bunter always used in the Frank Richards books? |  | | |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 09:46 - Dec 18 with 3225 views | hubble |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 09:25 - Dec 18 by davman |
... and if he got lucky, there'd be a bit of "slap and tickle" (c) Carry On at the end of the night... |
Ah, yes... so if a slap-head took a slapper out for a slap-up followed by a bit of slap and tickle they'd be slip sliding away.
Have I gone too far? | |
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| A Slap Up Meal. on 09:52 - Dec 18 with 3211 views | johann28 |
It's mentioned in a Charles Dickens novel (forget which) in which he used the expression 'slap-bang' to indicate a meal paid for by 'banging' coins on the table. The term 'slap-down' and 'bang-down' were common at the time and the term 'slap-bang' was a term used for a cheap eatery. This seems to have evolved over time from 'slap-down' as a negative adjective into 'slap-up' as a positive one. |  | | |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 10:18 - Dec 18 with 3162 views | BklynRanger |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 09:52 - Dec 18 by johann28 |
It's mentioned in a Charles Dickens novel (forget which) in which he used the expression 'slap-bang' to indicate a meal paid for by 'banging' coins on the table. The term 'slap-down' and 'bang-down' were common at the time and the term 'slap-bang' was a term used for a cheap eatery. This seems to have evolved over time from 'slap-down' as a negative adjective into 'slap-up' as a positive one. |
Interesting yeah - the first quality I always associate with one of these is spending quite a lot of cash on it, probably in a fairly swanky joint including napkins, heavy cutlery and ideally a candelabra.
It's a fairly traditional notion so probably nothing too interesting or exotic - a multi-course indian or chinese might just squeeze in but you want to be sawing through a good sized chunk of meat during at least one course.
Either way you need to be on the verge of doing a Mr Creosote by the end of it.
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| A Slap Up Meal. on 11:23 - Dec 18 with 3034 views | FG_R |
A quick internet search suggests that in published literature, one of the first uses of the term ‘slap-up’ was in reference to a really good boxing match that happened in 1821. It’s in a volume of a periodical called ‘The Sporting Magazine’ which you can find this on the following link
https://books.google.fi/books?id=AL0CAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA292&dq=%22slap-up%22&
(If you click on the portion of text shown, it seems to bring up the whole book).
I suppose the phrase could then have been adapted for other things that were seen as really good. | | | |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 12:03 - Dec 18 with 2950 views | CateLeBonR |
A slap up meal for me is more about attire than the food. A meal you should dress up for. [Post edited 18 Dec 2022 12:17]
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| A Slap Up Meal. on 13:51 - Dec 18 with 2802 views | colinallcars |
I've never looked it up but always thought it meant you slapped your swollen belly after a large meal. I always had visions of the fat well off gents in Dickensian novels.
A more obvious one is the square meal which alludes to square plates used in the navy in days gone by. These would not roll off the table on rough seas.
Aaaarrgh, splice the cabin boy. |  | | |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 23:32 - Dec 20 with 2536 views | GloryHunter |
Slap-up adj [early19C+] "fashionable, first-rate, of superior quality".
From Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, by Jonathon Green. No further explanation of origin. |  | | |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 00:02 - Dec 21 with 2486 views | Lblock |
An expression from the ages - love it!!!
As kids if Dad said…”right we’re going have a full slap up meal” we knew it was going to be somewhere nice (which equals The Berni Inn back then), or loads of grub, or proper nice food – sometimes all three.
For a while I thought slap up meal meant all three courses.
Such a great English saying….is it a more Southern/London thing or nationwide???
My slap up is:-
A seafood dish starter or French Onion soup
TBone steak, chunky chips, mushrooms (garlic), roasted vine tomatoes and a bernaise sauce
Followed by Twice Baked NY vanilla cheesecake
Bottle of Malbec and a schooner of port
Pwopper! |  |
| Cherish and enjoy life.... this ain't no dress rehearsal |
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| A Slap Up Meal. on 00:30 - Dec 21 with 2458 views | NewBee |
People are talking about a particular dish as being a "slap-up" meal, but I always thought it meant a full run of the menu i.e. everything "from soup to nuts".
No? | | | |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 09:21 - Dec 21 with 2329 views | colinallcars |
Another one from ages past is “stap me vitals” pronounced “vittals” | | | |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 17:06 - Dec 21 with 2112 views | PinnerPaul |
I worked with a french lady once, who had excellent English.
One day she asked us "What is this paller var?"
Took us a while to work out she meant "Palaver"  | | | |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 19:09 - Dec 21 with 1988 views | FG_R |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 09:21 - Dec 21 by colinallcars |
Another one from ages past is “stap me vitals” pronounced “vittals” |
Getting further & further away from QPR here - but ‘stap me vitals’ was used as an exclamation and basically meant ‘stop my vitals’ as in vital signs or vital organs.
However ‘ vittles’ is a term for food that would be well known to Charles Dickens, and is a corruption of victuals. And so saying something like ‘these are excellent vittles’ would be another way of referring to a slap-up meal.
‘Vittles’ is famously used in the opening chapter of Dickens’s Great Expectations when the convict asks Pip ‘… Do you know what wittles is…’. The pronunciation here is also quite interesting because it seems that there was a Victorian habit in London of interchanging ‘v’ and ‘w’. I can vaguely remember some of my older relatives, who were born in London in the late 1800s, occasionally doing this and saying things like ‘vont’ instead of ‘want’. | | | |
| A Slap Up Meal. on 12:30 - Dec 23 with 1761 views | GloryHunter |
Shorter Oxford Dictionary (I didn't think of looking until now).
Slap-up, slang and colloq 1827 [this will be the oldest published record]. "Very or unmistakably good or fine; first rate, first class, grand." | | | |
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