"Origins of words" by Susie Dent, Countdown 17/08/17 (chewing the fat)

I'm going to talk about "chewing the fat". If you chew the fat with somebody, then you're probably having old, good-fashioned chinwag, which is one of my favourite words. Or you might even be spinning a little bit of a yarn for somone, but, fortunately, today there's no actual fat involved, but it wasn't always that way, because, in the 19th century, sailors would often have to make do with a lot of salt pork when their provisions on board ran out, ehich id some pretty tough eating, particulary when it is particulary gristly and fatty, so it'a no wonder that they would grumble and complain when faced with another meal of salted pork bellies, but from this idea of chewing the fat came the very first meaning of the expression and that was to complain about it, so it meant to literally sit and grumble and moan and whinge over something, and the modern sense of chatting or, as I say, having a good chinwag, came later ehen people would get together and swap tales, have a good, old gossip. The English Dictionary is full of words for gossiping, just because it's one of our favourite pastimes, and chewing the fat is just one of those. Perhaps, you know, a little bit later, people were chewing on tobacco, but certanly those sailors of old would be chewing on fat. The by-products of all that salted pork was again in the form of fat, but as a liquid kind, with barrel loads of slush. It sounds very, very unappetising, but one article about life at sea form 1757 speaks of tars whose stomachs are not very squeamish and who can bear to paddle their fingers in stinking slush, so pretty horrible. But, despite it not being the pinnacle of foodie delight,  if you loke, it was considered a real perk for cooks and for their crew on board the ship and they would sell the fat from the cooked salt pork at sea whenever they reached a port and the proseedings were then pretty much spent in the local taverns and in other places, possibly of ill repute. But this was the first and original version of what we today call a slush fund, because it was a money actually gained from very real, stinking slush.