batchelor's fare

Lady Anſw[erall]. Colonel, ſome Ladies of your Acquaintance have promis'd to breakfast with you, and I am to wait on them; what will you give us? / Col[onel Atwit]. Why, faith, Madam, Batchelors Fare; Bread and Cheeſe, and Kiſſes. / Lady Anſw. Poh! what have you Batchelors to do with your Money, but to treat the Ladies? you have nothing to keep but your own Four Quarters.

1738, Simon Wagstaff [pseudonym; Jonathan Swift], A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, According to the Most Polite Mode and Method Now Used at Court, and in the Best Companies of England. In Three Dialogues, London: Printed by B[enjamin] Motte, and C. Bathurst, at the Middle Temple-Gate in Fleet-street, →OCLC, page 61

The villain of a pedlar saw his discourse was attentively heard, and flattered himself with the hopes of a supper and night's lodging; he was not deceived, for the parson was so well pleased with his conversation, that he insisted on his staying and partaking of batchelor's fare, bread and cheese, and mild ale; the latter he supplied his guest with so immoderately that he was obliged to convey him to his apartment.

1825, James Heney, chapter XX, in Agnes, or The Sailor’s Orphan; with Memoirs of the Dudley Family, Oxford: Published by Bartlett and Hinton; and sold at their warehouse, 17, Warwick-Square, and by G[eorge] Virtue, 26, Ivy Lane, London, →OCLC, pages 198–199

Neither batchelor's fare, nor lodging-house dinners have any attraction in his esteem; nor is he a convert to the cold-meat and pic-nic school;—no, no!—to please his palate, there must be a regularly-built, smoking, well-sustaining table.

1840, John Patterson, chapter III, in Camp and Quarters: Or Scenes and Impressions of Military Life. Interspersed with Anecdotes of Various Well-known Characters who Flourished in the War. … In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Saunders and Otley, Conduit Street, →OCLC, page 78