A penny bun or a penny loaf was a small bread bun or

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

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 country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

regulated by the

Assize of Bread and Ale The Assize of Bread and Ale ( la, Assisa panis et cervisiae) was a 13th-century law in 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 the fir ...

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 many other 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. From ...

'' London Bridge Is Falling Down'' 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 an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...

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 rhymi ...

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 or porcini) is a basidiomycete fungus, and the type species of the genus ''Boletus''. Widely distributed in the Northern Hemisphere across Europe, Asia, and North America, it does not occu ...

'', an edible basidiomycete

mushroom A mushroom or toadstool is the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground, on soil, or on its food source. ''Toadstool'' generally denotes one poisonous to humans. The standard for the name "mushroom" is ...

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

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

after

truffle A truffle is the fruiting body of a subterranean ascomycete fungus, predominantly one of the many species of the genus ''Tuber''. In addition to ''Tuber'', many other genera of fungi are classified as truffles including '' Geopora'', '' Pe ...

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. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

slang Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gr ...

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