Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. W.I.) food.

1827		Hamel, Obeah Man II 316: Your white man’s country has room for you all, and land and nyam-nyam enough.
1828		Marly; Planter’s Life in Jamaica 52: Dey good nyam for him neger, massa! Him, Sir Charles Price, [a large cane rat] good nyam for him neger, massa!
1836		M. Scott Cruise of the Midge II 208: ‘Now, sir what you doz wid your mout?’ ‘Nyam plawn’ * Creole for ‘eat plantain’.
1869		H.G. Murray ‘Tom Kittle’s Wake’ in D’Costa & Lalla Voices in Exile (1989) 109: Daddy, da de people da eat dem new nyams.
1902		J. Speirs Proverbs of British Guiana 12: Buy you’ nyam, nyam accordin’ to you money.
1910		Anderson & Cundall Jamaica Proverbs and Sayings 16: Nyam-nyam wi’ full you belly, but breeze can’t full you.
1912		C. McKay ‘Pay Day’ Constab Ballads 53: Man dem, wid dem hungry gut, / Six long fortnight nyam me rash.
1916		J.G. Cruickshank Black Talk 1: He-self a gi’ me nyam.
1929		M. Beckwith Jamaica Proverbs (1970) 91: Nyam-nyam will fill belly, but breeze no fill gut.
1930		G.B. Johnson ‘Speech of the Negro’ in Botkin Folk-Say 356: Buckra, white man, cooter, terrapin, yam or nyam, to eat, ki, an exclamation, are very probably African.
1957		F.G. Cassidy ‘Iteration as a Word-forming Device in Jam. Folk Speech’ in AS XXXII:1 50: nyam-nyam, food.
1966		L. Bennett ‘Cuss Cuss’ in Jamaica Labrish 189: Me sorry fe de man yuh get / De po’ ting hooden nyam.
1983		T. White Catch a Fire 258: Everything would be [...] taken back to Hope Road where gilly would prepare the communal ‘ninyam’ (meal).