Quiz question driving me mad

[icouldnteatanotherbite]

My workplace has a fun quiz - this year the theme is Theatre and Musicals. Each has a cryptic clue to solve. For example "Fatty matter" would be Grease.

I've already submitted my answers (so I'm not cheating!) but I couldn't get this one, and it's driving me mad.

Can the Hivemind solve it?

"Slang word for brown bread or rations as formerly distributed to troops and workers."

Military rations are called rat packs, would that work? I don’t know if that’s a slang word for brown bread or indeed a musical but it sounds less or it could be!

Only thing that springs to mind is "daily bread" has a feeling of rations about it.

“The Rat Pack”

The Rat Pack definitely seems to be the closest answer so far - thanks all! I've never heard of it as a synonym for brown bread though, though I'm aware there's a musical with that name.

The clue also doesn't stipulate "the" (it normally does say it requires the definite article), so I'm not 100% sure this is right, but it's definitely closer than I've got by myself, so many thanks! I'll update when we get the answers.

Tommy.

This. It's slang for bread and rations.

Yes, this.

https://www.wordreference.com/definition/tommy

@icouldnteatanotherbite scran??? we cant go on an empty belly

Tommy!

Thank you! I thought of Tommy, and knew it was slang for a British soldier, but had no idea about ration packs, or indeed brown bread.

Well done, Hivemind, well done.

My granddad was a Tommy, he often used to use the phrase Tommy Tucker to mean food.

Cockney rhyming slang for brown bread is dead? And rations were given out as points.

I would be useless at this lol

I just put what you put in quotes into google.