Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US prison/tramp) stew; thus slum-slinger, slum-burner, a cook.

1847		J. Mitchell Scenes and Characters of College 117: That noted dish [...] slum, which was our ordinary breakfast, consisting of the remains of yesterday’s boiled salt-beef and potatoes, hashed up and indurated in a frying fan.
1856		B.H. Hall College Words (rev. edn) 432: slum.
1871		L.H. Bagg Four Years at Yale 246: An olla podrida, hashed up from the remnants of yesterday’s dinner, and fried into a consistency which baffled digestion [...] was known as ‘slum,’ and was served both dry and wet [DA].
1900		Star and Sentinel (Gettysburg, PA) 4/5: ‘Slumgullock,’ otherwise ‘slum’ – Hash as obtained in the average Chinese restaurant [in Hong Kong].
1907		C. M’Govern By Bolo and Krag 25: The dusty stuff that was [...] interfering with our proper digesting of the toothsome salthorse slum. [Ibid.] 27: Telling each other what we was going to do with the company cooks when we caught those thieving slum-slingers in a saloon.
1917		Batchelder Watching and Waiting on The Border 30: Coffee, either ‘canned Willie’ (canned beef), beans, or ‘slum’ (stew), and hard-tack formed the usual menu.
1918		‘Wally’ Wallgren [comic strip] When the large chunk of beef Larry found in his slum turned out to be a bit of shrapnel.
1925		G.H. Mullin Adventures of a Scholar Tramp 286: We bummed a little slum at a railroad eatin’-house.
1927		(con. 1917) J. Stevens Mattock 137: We had a poor mess of nothing but corn Willy slum to eat.
1927		C. Samolar ‘Argot of the Vagabond’ in AS II:9 389: Stew is mulligan, slum or slumgullion.
1927		H. Yenne ‘Prison Lingo’ in AS II:6 281: Slum—Prison food.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 68: I guess they can put us up for the night in one of those houses, and give us some slum this evening.
1930		(con. 1890) G. Milburn ‘A Convention Song’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 27: Now here I am in Omaha, / A hungry, ring-tailed bum, / Tooting ringers for poke outs, / When what I want is slum.
1930		G. Milburn ‘The Bindle Stiff’s Revenge’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 56: A hobo was boiling a bucket of slum.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 580: In virtually all American prisons stew is slum, bread is punk or dummy, gravy is skilley. [Ibid.] 582: The favorite jungle delicacy is mulligan or slum, a stew made of meat and vegetables.
1939		Army and Navy Register (US) 18 Nov. 3/2: ‘Slum burner,’ still another fond name for the cook.
1940		(con. 1914) S.J. Simonsen Soldier Bill 11: Bill learned at his first meal that [...] ‘slum’ meant a thick meat stew.
1940		Phila. Eve. Ledger 20 July n.p.: ‘Pass the cosmoline and sand; I’m going to try to improve this slum.’ [...] What is really meant is, ‘Pass the butter and sugar. I’m going to try to improve this stew.’ [Ibid.] ‘Slum’--principal article of food at a meal, usually used, however, to denote stew.
1941		L.A. Times 23 Mar. B14: One thing draftees learn in the Army is a new language, as many will agree at this border post [...] A cook is a ‘slum-burner.’.
1947		D.W. Hamilton ‘Pacific War Lang.’ in AS XXII:1 Feb. 56: slum burner. A cook.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 214: slum [...] prison fare slum chow Food.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 198/2: Slum. 1. (P) Stew; prison food generally.
1964		(con. 1920s–40s) in J.L. Kornbluh Rebel Voices.

2. (US) soup.

1917

L.A. Times 22 Apr. III 22: ‘Bring on the chow, only don’t give me any slum,’ one guardsman told his mother on the night of his return from the Mexican border. His mother naturally demanded a translation. ‘Why, chow is the army term for anything good to eat,’ the guardsman explained. ‘Slum means soup.’.

3. (UK tramp) anything edible.

1934

P. Allingham Cheapjack 188: By ‘cough slum’ he meant cough candy or any sort of throat lozenge.