Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(left-over) beef and cabbage and/or potatoes fried up together; occas. fish and potatoes (see cit. 1935).

1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 507: We therefore cook’d him up a dish / Of lean bull-beef, with cabbage fry’d [...] Bubble they call this dish, and squeak.
1785		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘The Lousiad’ Works (1794) I 211: Such is the sound [...] Form’d by what mortals Bubble call, and Squeak, When ’midst the frying-pan, in accents savage, The beef so surly quarrels with the cabbage.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1799		G. Huddesford attrib. [title] Bubble and Squeak — a Galli-Maufry of British Beef with the Chopp’d Cabbage of Gallic Philosophy and Radical Reform.
1810		‘Mister Grig and Miss Snap’ A Garland of New Songs (13) 6: What a set of woes! / For the house-dog, in the freak, / Bon’d the bubble and the squeak, / And pussy ran away with the pettitoes.
1825		‘Bubble, Squeak, and Pettitoes’ Universal Songster I 7/1: Some nice bubble and squeak, / For he loved that as well.
1834		[as 1825].
1842		Kentish Gaz. 22 Nov. 4/2: Sailors on board Irish boats which bring over live pigs [...] have the opportunity of enjoying ‘bubble and squeak’.
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 494: ‘Here, lassie!’ cried he, to a little girl, who was frying a dish of bubble-and-squeak at the fire.
1865		‘Bubble and Squeak’ Bob Smith’s Clown Song and Joke Bk 31: And from that day to this, beef and cabbage together, / Have always been called bubble and squeak.
1870		Essex Newsman 1 Oct. 4/6: The Cottage Housewife [...] Bubble and Squeak — Cut [...] some cold boiled salt beef [...] Chop up some cooked cabbage.
1877		‘Bubble, Squeak and Pettitoes’ Laughing Songster 47: Some nice bubble and squeak, / For he loved that as well as she loved pettitoes.
1886		Wkly Freeman’s Jrnl 17 July 12/5: Are tripe and cow heel [...] and bubble-and-squeak in the menu?
1890		Cheltenham Chron. 1 Feb. 3/1: A dish of ‘bubble-and-squeak’ will use up remains of potato and green vegetable.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 12: Bubble and Squash, a feed of fried greens and cold meat.
1905		H.G. Wells Kipps (1952) 133: Sausages, black and white puddings, bubble and squeak [...] came and went.
1911		H. Champion ‘Cover It Over Quick, Jemima’ [monologue] The dogs will be after my bubble and squeak.
1918		H.V. O’Brien diary 7 Oct. in Wine, Women and War (1926) 218: No American can ever kiss the hand that feeds him ‘bubble and squeak’.
1920		P.L. Waldron Afloat and Ashore 155: The very food consumed [...] and wonderfully concocted messes of whatever edible ingredients are procurable, described as ‘dandyfunk,’ ‘dog’s body,’ ‘Harriet Lane,’ ‘bubble and squeak’.
1928		Western Gaz. 21 Dec. 13/3: This Week’s Prize Menu [...] Bubble and Squeak.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 14/1: Bubbles and squeaks, fish and potatoes (prison).
1935		M. Harrison Spring in Tartarus 325: The saveloy was served with a mixture of fried potato and cabbage known as ‘bubble-and-squeak’.
1944		Maurer & Baker ‘“Aus.” Rhyming Argot’ in AS XIX:3.
1946		Aberdeen Jrnl 4 Nov. 2/3: Fry the cooked vegetables [...] this dish is commonly known as bubble and squeak.
1960		A. Burgess Right to an Answer (1978) 93: Cold turkey and bubble-and-squeak.
1990		Tampa Trib. (FL) 9 Sept. 107/4: [In New Zealand] ‘Bubble and squeak’ is a vegetable hash.