Jack Sprat and his wife make an odd but tidy pair, one who can't eat fat and one who can't eat lean, licking the platter clean between them. Six lines and done, which makes it one of the easiest rhymes in the whole collection to learn by heart.
From Mother Goose / Nursery Rhymes (traditional). See the whole collection.
Jack Sprat
Could eat no fat,
His wife could eat no lean;
And so,
Betwixt them both,
They licked the platter clean.
About this rhyme
Jack Sprat was once a general name for a small or undersized person, in use well before the rhyme was ever printed. The verse began as a proverb, written down as early as 1639: a married couple who between them waste nothing. He eats the lean, she eats the fat, and the plate is left clean. Stories that tie Jack to a particular king are later inventions with no real evidence, so the plain reading is the true one.
This is a table rhyme. Say it at a meal, especially one where something is being left on the plate, and land on 'licked the platter clean' at the end. It gives a light way to talk about the idea that between two people, not much needs to go to waste.
Public domain. Text from The Real Mother Goose (Blanche Fisher Wright, 1916), via Project Gutenberg. View the source edition