"Boiled Beef and Carrots" is a comedic musical hall song published in 1909, and composed by Charles Collins and Fred Murray.

The song was made famous by Harry Champion who sang it as part of his act and recorded it. It was also recorded by Dan Smith in the 1960s.

The song extols the virtues of a typical English, and particularly Cockney, dish.

Chorus:

Boiled beef and carrots,

Boiled beef and carrots,

That's the stuff for your "Derby Kell",

Makes you fit and keeps you well.

Don't live like vegetarians

On food they give to parrots,

Blow out your kite, from Morn til night,

On boiled beef and carrots.

"Derby Kell" is old Cockney rhyming slang for belly ("Derby Kelly"). "Blow out your kite" refers to the fact that 'kite' (also 'kyte') is a working-class British slang word for the human belly, and -- by extension -- the entire human body. ^[1]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, vol. VIII, p. 471.