A penny bun or a penny loaf was a small bread

bun A bun is a type of bread that is round and small enough that it can generally be eaten hand-held. Whether a bun is considered sweetened or unsweetened differs between countries: it is considered sweetened in the United Kingdom, a savory bread in ...

loaf A loaf (: loaves) is a (usually) rounded or oblong quantity of food, typically and originally of bread. It is common to bake bread in a rectangular bread pan or loaf pan because some kinds of bread dough tend to collapse and spread out during ...

which cost one old penny at the time when there were 240 pence to the pound. A penny loaf was a common size loaf of bread in

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

regulated by the

Assize of Bread and Ale The Assize of Bread and Ale () (''temp. incert'') was a 13th-century law in High Middle Ages, high medieval England, which regulated the price, weight and quality of the bread and beer manufactured and sold in towns, villages and hamlets. It was t ...

act of 1266. The size of the loaf could vary depending on the prevailing cost of the flour used in the baking. The

nursery rhyme A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for children in Britain and other European countries, but usage of the term dates only from the late 18th/early 19th century. The term Mother Goose rhymes is interchangeable with nursery rhymes. Fr ...

London Bridge Is Falling Down "London Bridge Is Falling Down" (also known as "My Fair Lady" or "London Bridge") is a traditional English nursery rhyme and singing game, which is found in different versions all over the world. It deals with the dilapidation of London Bridg ...

'' has a version which includes the line "Build it up with penny loaves". The term appears in the first complete published version of the "To Market, To Market" rhyme in 1805 as "To market, to market, to buy a penny bun, Home again, home again, market is done" in ''Songs for the Nursery''. The expression "penny bun" is

Cockney Cockney is a dialect of the English language, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by Londoners with working-class and lower middle class roots. The term ''Cockney'' is also used as a demonym for a person from the East End, ...

rhyming slang Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhymin ...

for one, sun and son. "Penny bun" is also the common English name for the cep (French), or ''

Boletus edulis ''Boletus edulis'' (English: cep, penny bun, porcino) is a basidiomycete fungus, and the type species of the genus ''Boletus''. It is prized as an edible mushroom. The fungus produces Basidiospore, spore-bearing basidiocarp, fruit bodies ...

'', an edible basidiomycete

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or another food source. ''Toadstool'' generally refers to a poisonous mushroom. The standard for the n ...

. Native to Europe and North America, it is Europe's second most sought-after

fungus A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

after

truffle A truffle is the Sporocarp (fungi), fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, one of the species of the genus ''Tuber (fungus), Tuber''. More than one hundred other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including ''Geopora'', ''P ...

s. "Cockle to a penny bun" is

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

slang A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...

for racing odds of 10 to 1.

References

External links

Penny Loaf Day in Newark-on-Trent
Breads Fungi and humans Buns {{bread-stub pl:Drożdżówka

See also

References

External links