hash-slinger, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

hash-slinger n.

(US)

1. (also hash-handler, hash-hoister) a short-order cook or waiter/waitress; thus hash-slinging adj.

1868		Gold Hill News (NV) 6 May n.p.: The nice young man of Washoe may or may not be some kind of a clerk, a hash-slinger, or a check-guerrilla [DA].
1876		B. Harte Gabriel Conroy II 148: As hash-slinger, Sal can walk over anything of her weight in Plumas.
1879		Dly Globe (St Paul, MN) 1 Apr. 6/1: Adams was once upon a time a biscuit shooter or hash handler, at the Sherman house.
1881		Idaho Semi-Wkly World (ID) 8 Feb. 3/4: The hotel gongs were silent, for there wasn’t a hash-slinger [...] that had the cheek enough to strike the noon gong.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 164: Getting the chase from kinky-headed hash-slingers.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 313: You’ll get th’ next cell to that hash-slingin’ stoolpigeon of yours.
1905		Sun. Times (Perth) 5 Feb. 1/1: A comely Midland Junction hash-slinger threatens to provide the subject for stoush.
1906		J.C. Bell Pilgrim and Pioneer 405: The owner of the gambling hall blandly referred to the cook as a ‘pot-wrestler,’ to the waiter as a ‘hash-slinger’.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Aug. 13/2: [W]hat price a staff captain’s ‘pidgin’ on some of the lines that carry coons as hash-, plate- and coal-slingers.
1922		‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 85: Yet I’m glad the fat hash-slinger was peeved into reaction.
1928		O.O. McIntyre New York Day by Day 24 Jan. [synd. col.] [Waitresses] were known as ‘biscuit shooters’ or ‘hash slingers’.
1938		T. Thursday ‘Tomahawk McCloskey’ in Thrilling Sports Mar. 🌐 Bula Barry, who is the star hash-hoister in the Golden Hamburger Barbecue Cafe.
1944		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 26 Aug. 12A: I’ve been a pearl diver, a hash slinger too.
1953		W. Fisher Waiters 247: He was a crackerjack waiter, not just a ‘hash-slinger’.
1969		‘Iceberg Slim’ Pimp 246: I could maybe find a young hash-slinger in a greasy spoon.
1992		P. Anthony Firefly 331: ‘You have a problem with that, hash-slinger?’ The waiter hastily backed away.
2004		R. Ebert Movie Yearbook 17: Madsen is the spark of the place, not a stereotyped, gum-chewing hash-slinger, but a woman who takes an interest in the people who come her way.
2010		K. Richards Life 414: The producer of the show [...] spoke in court about my role as a slinger of hash in the great cultural kitchen.

2. a college student waiter in a mountain resort hotel.

1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 16: hash-slinger n. A table waiter.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 150/2: Hash-slingers (Amer., 1880). College-student waiters in up-mountain hotels.
1939		Howsley Argot: Dict. of Und. Sl.

3. an army cook.

1896

Regiment 11 Apr. 31/2: [C]ooks is, as a rule, awful. We have a sergeant cook of corse, who has studied the art [...] but then what is one man to instruct sixteen to twenty. No-nothin’ hash-slingers .