Nursery Food; Half-Runners

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   The parade tonight was washed out.  A few elephants walked by in their elephant raincoats, and then the thing was called off.
   I told my other travellers (2 others on this tour) about food, and they gave me these two words to work on:

NURSERY FOOD--British comfort food.  OED has it from Agatha Christie (1949).  What does the full-text TIMES OF LONDON and NEW YORK TIMES have?

HALF RUNNERS--Beans.  Not in OED.  DARE?  Will this show up in the American Periodical Series, which has 19th century agricultural periodicals?