"Piece" as a verb, meaning to snack?

I suspect that the British side of your family was from Scotland where a "Piece" was, and still is, a snack (to be more precise, a Sandwich - usually a Jeely [jelly] Piece).

Scottish school children still take a "Play Piece" for the morning recess break, this can be anything from fruit to biscuits (cookies), crisps (chips) or even a Jam Sandwich.

However, piece is a noun, it may be that, across the pond, over the years the action of having a "Piece" evolved into a verb.

There are loads of examples of common English words that are used VERY differently in Scotland. To row usually means to argue, but in Scotland you can give someone a row (tell them off) or request, usually from a younger person to an older person, that the older person "Give (another younger individual) a row" for some transgression. In the West of Scotland one can even "Give someone INTO a row".

In most parts of the world Messages are delivered, in Scotland people "go FOR the messages" - do a shopping!

My grandmother also always used piece in this way, as a verb: "Were you piecing on the cake?", or "I feel a little hungry; I could piece on some leftovers."

Her maiden name was Tandy and she had Scotch and Irish ancestors, but both sides of her family had been in the US a very long time (one ancestor on the Mayflower, DAR eligible on both sides) — she was born in Oregon in 1920. She also still used "et" and "het."

This is the first link I've found in reference to the phrase "to piece on." I was surprised to find that none of the online dictionaries refer to this term. I heard both of my parents use this phrase when I was growing up, (beginning in the mid-1950s) and, indeed, all their lives. My father still "pieced on nuts" right up until his death at age 93 this year.

Both sides of my family are entirely of Italian descent, so any German or Scottish etymological origins would have been passed on by way of locality, not through family/cultural usage. My mother was born and raised in Ohio, and my father lived in Illinois during his youth and college years. (Their parents all immigrated from Italy.) It may be a Midwestern phrase, and appears to have existed prior to the 1950s - at least in Ohio. My father received a letter from the dean of Ohio University in 1946 in which the dean remarked, "How could I forget a man who pieced on two dozen donuts?"

Thanks for the posts that have shed some light on this phrase.