cake and wine

English

Noun

cake and wine (uncountable)

1. (US, naval slang) A restricted diet of bread and water, imposed as a disciplinary measure.
   • 1980, The Compass, volumes 50-52, page 26:

     After a week of privation on pound cake and white wine (strangely the Navy's slang for solitary confinement on bread and water was "cake and wine") Carlsen received warm nourishment.

   • 2009, Chester A. Wright, Black Men and Blue Water, page 222:

     If one was 5 minutes late he got three days bread and water for a first offense. A second time got the culprit 5 days. Insolence and/or insubordination earned one a deck court-martial with 10 days on "cake and wine".

   • 2011, Stephen Curley, The Ship That Would Not Die:

     […] and the skipper threw him in the brig for five days on cake and wine (bread and water, in navy slang).

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cake,‎ wine.