The speaker looks back on a stretch of life working as a cook in a city, and the picture is one of scraping by. The city is called "a great experiment," which sounds both hopeful and uncertain, as if nobody quite knew whether living there would work out. The speaker never found "a clean plate against tomorrow," a phrase that suggests there was never any safety or reserve to fall back on. Each day was used up before the next began.
Money seems tight too. The speaker is "paying many little debts," and everything happens in "a hurry of business," so life feels rushed and cluttered with small obligations.
The final lines are the plainest and perhaps the saddest. A cook spends the day making food for others, yet the speaker eats only bread and cheese, then bread and butter. The repetition makes the diet feel monotonous. The mood is wry, tired, and quietly matter-of-fact, with no self-pity, just a clear look at a hard, busy time.