饭票 (fànpiào) · meal ticket

Before the 1990s, urban workplaces and university canteens in China issued paper 饭票 - meal stubs you traded for food. In the planned-economy era they were used alongside 粮票 (grain coupons) and 油票 (oil coupons). Most have been digitized into campus IC cards or QR codes today, but the word survives.

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The figurative sense - calling a partner one's 长期饭票 (long-term meal ticket) - is a half-joking, half-cynical reference to marrying for financial security. Carries the same edge as the English idiom; use carefully.