Food idioms

Food idioms!

"An idiom is a word, phrase, or expression that cannot be taken literally because the meaning is figurative. Idioms are a form of expression peculiar to a language"

The English language has many idioms that mentions food. How can food add a bit of spice to the English language and where do they come from? This is what we are going to try to find out in this article.m of expression peculiar to a language".

Take a physiological necessity essential to human survival: eating. Mix it for several centuries to the only way of communication that humans have: language. Sprinkle the whole with a few grams of customs, locals particularities, infliuent

ial personalities... you will finaly get a nice array of food expressions!

For example, have you ever heard of the expression "to go cold turkey"?

It is usually said when you want to quit something, it can be alcohol or cigarettes as well as chocolate or soda, without weaning yourself off it. It is said that tje original idea was that a person withdrawing from using drugs would find his or her skin turning hard to the touch and translucent to look at, with goose pimples all over - like the skin of a plucked turkey. It ha salso been suggested that the phrase is a comparison between eating a no-prep meal of cold turkey and stopping heavy drugs use without preparation...

Also, have you ever "buttered someone up"?? This idiom is used when trying to persuade someone to do something for someone else. It's easy to assume that the idea behind this phrase has to do with the smoothly way of how butter can be spread on bread. But that is not it. It is said that it comes from an ancient Indian custom of "throwing butterballs of ghee (clarified butter comonly used in Indian cooking) at the statues of the gods to seek favor".

You could also hear "to have a bun in the oven". It refers to a woman who is pregnant. The origin of this term are unclear but is has been used since the early mid 20th century to compare pregnancy and baking. TThe bun aka the baby, has to be cooked for a specific lenght of time in the oven, or the mother's womb.

But the most basic ingredients of food expressions are fruits and vegetables. For example you can hear:

"to go bananas": go crazy, mad or wild with excitment, anger, frustration or any strong emotion. No one really knows where this expression comes from but it is said that it might have been originated in the 60's when rumors spread across universities campuses that roasted banana peels had psychedelic propertis and that ingesting them could lead to hallucinations similar to LSD or magic mushrooms...

"to be like two peas in a pod": to say that two people are like two peas in a pod means that they are very similar in appearance. The phrase, which is sometimes given as "like as two peas", is quite old and versions of it date from the 16th century.

"to be as cool as a cucumber": when someone is as cool as

a cucumber it means they are not anxious, but relaxed and non-emotional. This expression was first recorded in John

Gay'sPoems, New song on new similies, in 1732. "I...as cool as a cucumber could see The rest of womankind"

"a hot potato" is a problem or topic so controversial an sensitive that it is hard to deal with. This term dates back from the mid 1800's.

Why did all these food idioms emerged in English language throughout all these years? Probably because all these expressions using food are instantly very recognisable by everyone. I think that the key to a good expression is that it needs to be very easy to picture for everybody. Food is good for this reason because it is an experience that we all share and that we can all understand. Maybe in the future we will start to hear expressions about more recent culinary imports!?