Chew the fat

[7] The Oxford English Dictionary's earliest citation for "Chew the fat" is from 1885 in a book by J Brunlees Patterson called Life in the Ranks of the British Army in India.

[8] Prior to the adoption of metallic cartridges, most ammunition was composed of powder and a ball wrapped in paper or cloth soaked in animal fat, which was bitten open during musket drill.

Though long-since replaced by 1885, the idea of biting or chewing on fat-soaked rag ends may well have entered military parlance in this fashion prior to Patterson's recording.

[citation needed] Appearing first in print from 1875 in "Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang", the excerpt reads: "Gents, I could chew the rag hours on end, just spilling out the words and never know no more than a Billy-Bennett-goat what I’d been saying.

[3] They first appeared synonymously as early as 1885,[6] in J. Brunlees Patterson's "Life in the ranks of the British army in India and on board a troopship", which listed the terms in succession: "..whistling, singing, arguing the point, chewing the rag, or fat, or other voluble and noisy inflictions, such as the screeching and gabbling of parrots and yelping of canines.."[10]It was used as a way to describe complaining or grumbling,[6] typically by the military.