“Never Eat Chips/Cheese/Cake, Eat Salad/Salmon Sandwiches And Remain Young” is a mnemonic aid that some have used to spell the word “necessary.” The line “Never Eat Chips: Eat Salad Sandwiches And Remain Young” has been cited in print since at least 1996.
The mnemonic has been most popular in the United Kingdom.
Other spelling mnemonics using food include “A Rat In The House May/Might Eat The Ice Cream” (“arithmetic”) and “Betty Eats Cakes And Uncle Sells Eggs” (“because”).
Google Books
Brain Train:
Studying for success
By Richard Palmer
Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor and Francis
1996 (Second edition)
Pg. 44:
At least 90% of my students find difficulty at some time or another in spelling the word “necessary.” It taked a lot of them years to stop wondering if it’s two “c"s and one “s”, or two of each, or one “r” or two, or whatever. A pupil of mine once put forward this mnemonic as an aid:
Never Eat Chips: Eat Salad Sandwiches And Remain Young
Google Groups: uk.singles
Newsgroups: uk.singles
From: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (Hob)
Date: 1997/07/29
Subject: Re: British women
>Mnemonic for “necessary”: Never Eat Chips, Eat Salad Sandwiches And
>Remain Young.
One collar and two sleeves.
Google Groups: uk.local.yorkshire
Newsgroups: uk.local.yorkshire
From: Colin Blackburn
Date: 1999/12/09
Subject: Re: Classic Films (was HMHB/pubz)
For necessary I was taught,
Never Eat Cake, Eat Salmon Sandwiches And Remain Young
Google Books
The Good Grammar Guide
By Richard Palmer
New York, NY: Routledge
2003
Pg. 178:
mnemonic
A memory aid. Particularly valuable when learning to spell—a piece of pie; there is a rat in separate; and never eat chips, eat salad sandwiches and remain young, an imaginative formula to ensure the correct spelling of necessary.
Google Books
English
By Kath Jordan
London: letts Educational
2006
Pg. 87:
Necessary
never eat cake eat salad sandwiches and remain young
The Times (London)
August 10, 2006
A holiday to forget at Memory Manor
Last Night’s TV by Ian Johns
Never eat chips, eat salad sandwiches and remain young. No, it’s not a formula for healthy living from You Are What You Eat but what comes to a friend’s mind whenever she writes the word “necessary”.
The Telegraph (London)
10 minute brain training: Back to school
Prof Ian Robertson shows you how to keep your brain trim. This week: go back to school
2:15PM GMT 24 Nov 2008
(...)
At school, we were taught mnemonics to help us remember how to spell tricky words that caught us out in tests. “Never Eat Cheese, Eat Salmon Sandwiches and Remain Young” reminded us how many Cs and Ss were in necessary.
CBBC Newsround
Last Updated: Wednesday June 03 2009 10:34 GMT
Do you have any spelling tips?
(...)
“Never eat cheese eat salad sandwiches and remain young - it spells necessary!”
Johanna, 12, Lausanne, Switzerland