Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. green vegetables, esp. asparagus.

[1764		Foote Mayor of Garrat in Works (1799) I 181: I should recommend the opening a new branch of trade; sparagrass, gentlemen, the manufacturing of sparagrass [...] I will take upon me to say, that a hundred of grass from the corporation of Garrat, will [...] be held, at least, as an equivalent to a Battersea bundle].
1833		T. Hood ‘A Public Dinner’ Works (1862) II 421: You then make a cut on / Some Lamb big as Mutton; / And ask for some grass.
1838		‘Alfred Crowquill’ Seymour’s Humourous Sketches (1866) 90: Grass or spinach, Sir? fine ‘grass,’ — first this season.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 93/1: I have the grass – it’s always called, when cried in the streets, ‘Spar-row gra-ass’ – tied up in bundles of a dozen.
1876		Illus. Sporting & Dramatic News 8 Apr.. 22/1: [T]hree hundred asparagus in a basket on his head [...] (which asparagus possibly Pierce Egan would have described [as] ‘three hundred of grass on the roof of his nut’).
1899		A. Binstead Houndsditch Day by Day 138: Go ’an put us on eight chops, vith fried pertaters, a couple o’ bundles o’ grass — ’ ‘A whatta, sare?’ ‘Grass [...] sparrer-grass’.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 149: A little bundle of grass of my own growing, as a present to your wife.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 141: And what leavings for dinners! – patey-boy-grass and mushrooms.
1931		Chronicle-Telegram (Elyria, OH) 5 May 16/1: In hash-houses along the water front on West street, there is a hilarious jargon understandable only to the initiated. [...] A ‘McGraw’ is a lamb stew. Spinach is ‘grass’, milk toast is a ‘Graveyard Stew’ and ‘Burn up a Bull’ is a Porterhouse steak.
1936		H.W. Bentley ‘Linguistic Concoctions of the Soda Jerker’ in AS XI:1 43: GRASS. Lettuce.
1944		H.B. Hersey G.I. Laughs 171: Grass, salad.
1966		in Newark (OH) Advocate 21 May 3/3–4: hold the grass -- no lettuce.
2000		Guardian Travel 20 May 8: It would be nice to report that the Round o’ Gras’ at nearby Badsey was equally unspoilt. After all, it is the best-known asparagus pub of all, as its name suggests.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1940

S. Longstreet Decade 152: There was red caviar, and plates of grass salads.