Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. UK Und.) food, esp. supplies that have been secreted away for later use, e.g. on a journey; thus rum prog, high-quality food; also attrib.

1655		Fuller Church Hist. of Britain Bk VI 290: The Abbot also every Saturday was to visit their beds, to see if they had not shuffled in some softer matter or purloyned some progge for themselves .
1665		‘R.M.’ Scarronides 60: She gave him poak and venemous progg, Enough to poyson any Dogg.
1672		M. Atkins Cataplus 17: Out of Greece thou shalt have prog, / Hogs puddings, oat-cakes, milk and butter, / Bacon, eggs, poultrey, and a clatter/ Of pease and beans, with pannier'd baggage / Of parsnips, turnips, carrots, cabbage.
1688		T. Shadwell Squire of Alsatia II ii: So, here’s the prog, here’s the dinner coming up.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Prog, c. Meat. Rum Prog c. nice Eating.
1710		A Society of Ladies Female Tatler (1992) (110) 199: Her husband [...] every now and then had his mouth full of prog to show that the country gentry are not ashamed of good stomachs.
1726		J. Gay ‘Molly Mog’ Poetical Works II (1854) 172: O nephew! your grief is but folly, / In Town you may find better prog.
1739		R. Bull Grobianus 111: When therefore thou’rt invited to a Feast, Besure to carry your Companion-beast; [...] Who shall displace him or invade his Prog? None, while he has a Patron – happy Dog!
1740		L. Whyte ‘The humours of Deoch an Doruis’ in A. Carpenter Verse in Eng. in 18C Ireland (1998) 294: Tho’ undisturbed by Cat or Dog, / Who perish’d there for want of Prog.
1768		Gentleman’s Bottle-Companion 38: One half your damn’d country would jump at such prog.
1780		in F. Moore Songs and Ballads of the Amer. Revolution (1855) 314: His horse that carried all his prog.
1790		J. Freeth ‘A Strolling Ballad Singer’s Ramble to London’ Political Songster 6: But as to prog [...] So little is our swallow, / A crust of bread – serves us for food.
1801		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘Orson & Ellen’ Works (1801) V 374: I’m vastly fond of hog [...] I know no prettier prog.
1818		‘Thomas Brown’ Fudge Family in Paris Letter III 20: And this is the place for it, Dicky, you dog, / Of all places on earth — the head-quarters of Prog!
1829		‘I’m One of the New Police’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 207: I’m now in want of prog.
1833		‘Tom’s Education’ in Tommarroo Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) IV 350: Put some prog in my basket, / And beer in my flasket, / And tardily toddled to school.
1836		D. Crockett Exploits and Adventures (1934) 243: I’ve let myself for fourteen dollars a month, and find my own prog and lodging.
1842		Comic Almanack Feb. 305: Tom Gad, a swell in a town hotel, / Is breakfasting like a king; / Besides his proggery, lots of toggery / Hatters and tailors bring.
1843		Bellew Memoirs of a Griffin I 233: Others unfolded little stores of rice, or parched gram [...] Poor prog to fight upon, thought I.
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 Oct. 4/3: The superior orders were left to while away the time [...] agreeably diversified by an application to their baskets of prog.
1848		G.W.M. Reynolds Mysteries of London II (2nd series) 276: She’ll bring a basket of prog along with her.
1853		Delhi Sketch Bk 1 Sept. 50/1: We were terribly hard up for prog.
1857		J.E. Ritchie Night Side of London 221: Fat old women with their baskets filled with prog.
1861		G.J. Whyte-Melville Good for Nothing (1890) 209: It’s no joke [...] camping out in the dark, without a morsel of prog or a drop to drink.
1878		‘’Arry on the Turf’ Punch 29 Nov. 297/1: The prog and the lotion was lummy.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 18 July 10/1: They keeps me heer in a dark sell / Wich is as black as the waults ov Hell, / And they shoves me in mi prog / Jist as iff I was a madd dog.
1894		C. Lever Dodd Family Abroad 366: The hampers of proggery will fill two carriages, and a charette with the champagne in ice is already sent forward.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 4 Mar. 1/6: Much fizz and plenty prog.
1896		Mirror of Life 4 July 17/1: [I]t was Burtwell’s custom to bring down the prog basket for self and his other conductors and drivers.
1896		G.M. Fenn Sappers and Miners 182: If we don’t come back, you send a fresh shift, and let ’em bring us some prog and some blankets.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 16 Mar. 371: It was a good thing they had what Paddy called ‘lashins av prog’.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 29 Jan. 1/1: The drowning incident didn’t affect the gaiety of the Mayoral garden party [...] the deadheads weren’t going to miss cheap prog for a common labourer’s corpsing.
1918		Aussie (France) 7 Sept. 14/2: When the battle was over, the boys were hungry. I commanded them to sit down in their platoons, and dished out the prog. (My language has become horribly coarse since I joined the Bloodandgutser Battalion.).
1921		N&Q 12 Ser. IX 503: Prog. Food.
1927		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 Aug. 14/3: With blankets and prog [...] He sits out at Spearwood.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1983		W.F Marshall ‘The Talking Flea’ in Livin’ in Drumlister 108: She’s in under a grassy mullan / That rises in carrigeen bog, / With a cannivaun bed to lie on / An’ aitin’ the best of prog.
1994		V. Banville Evans House in the Faythe 65: My mother [...] returning from her weekly trip to town laden down with bags and parcels of ‘prog’ as she called the provisions.