cakes and ale

noun[plural only]2

1. •
   (old-fashioned) The simple material pleasures of life.

   • To furnish the cakes and ale of the mind, is, we take it, the proper virtue of novels. It is for mental delight and recreation that we resort to them. — 1857
2. •
   (old-fashioned) Lively fun and merrymaking.

   • Dost thou thinke because thou art vertuous, there shall be no more Cakes and Ale? — 1601