Food for thought

The vocabulary of eating has long been used to categorize and describe a variety of experiences. In American English a casual conversation is chewing the fat, an argument is a rhubarb, a complaint is a beef. Shoddy workmanship is cheesy and 3 defective automobile is 3 lemon; a misleading statement is a waffle; an over-emphatic actor is a ham; a person may tell a corny joke and lay an egg; the meat-and-potatoes man objects to pork-barrel corruption- a statement may be full of baloney; someone, who jeers is giving the raspberry. The taste of food is likewise applied to personalities: A woman can be spicy, delectable, a dish; she may have a sweet or a sour disposition; a man may be described as peppery or bland, as an oily sort, one who knows how to butter you up, and a sugar daddy. And a particularly trying person might be asked, "What's eating you?"

from: Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating p. 117 Peter Farb and George Armelagos

Another author who writes extensively on the English language is Richard Lederer. You may be familiar with his book Anguished English. The following is excerpted from another of his books:

And think of the various people we meet every day. Some have taste. Others we take with a grain of salt. Some drive us bananas or crackers. Still are others are absolutely out to lunch: 'the young sprouts and broths of lads who feel their oats and are full of beans, 'the salty, crusty oldsters who are wrinkled as prunes and live to a ripe old age bell beyond their salad days, 'the peppery smart cookies (no mere eggheads, they}, who use their beans and noodles to cut the mustard, the half-baked meat heads, the flaky couch potatoes and the pudding-headed vegetables who drive us nuts with their slow-as-molasses pea-brains and who gum up the works and are always in a pickle, a jam, hot water, the soup, or a fine kettle of fish, the unsavory, crummy, hard-boiled, ham-fisted rotten apples with their cauliflower ears, who can cream us, bat the stuffing out of us, make us into mincemeat and hamburger, and knock us ass over teakettle and flatter than a pancake the mealy-mouthed marsh-mallows, Milquetoasts, milksops, half-pints and cresmpulfs who walk on eggshells and whose knees turn to jelly as they gingerly waffle and fudge on every issue to see which side their bread is buttered on. the carrot-topped, pizza-faces string beans and beanpoles, who, with their lumpy Adam's apples, are long drinks of water, the top bananas, big cheeses and big breadwinners who ride the gravy train by making lot of lettuce and dough and who never work for peanuts or small potatoes, the honeys, tomatoes, dumplings, cheesecakes and sweetie pies with their peaches-and-cream complexions, strawberry blond hair, almond eyes and cherry lips, "the salt-of-the-earth good eggs who take the cake, know their onions, make life a bowl of cherries and become the apples of our eye and the toasts of the town.

I don't wish to take the words right out of your mouth, but, in a nutshell, it all boils down to the fact that every day we truly eat our words.

from: Crazy English pp. 97-99 Richard Lederer

FORUM magazine recently (Oct-Dec 1998, v.36, #4) carried an interesting article about food and language and how they are intertwined. The article illustrates how food nourishes language. Much of our language contains references to food. These references conjure up images worth a thousand words each. Indeed, we say that something interesting and worthwhile gives us "food for thought". Here is a little story using lots and lots of food metaphors. Following that you will find an explanation of those metaphors, some of which are obvious, others a bit more subtle.

HE TAKES THE CAKE!

/ tell you, that guy Fred, he's a real top banana. The guy's out to lunch. He better be careful because real soon he's going to find himself eating humble pie. His ideas are ok on the surface, but when you start to look at them you realize that they're really Swiss cheese - not well thought out. He always expects us to fill in the holes and make him look good. We get everything he gives us done to a T, but he takes all the credit. It would be nice if, for once, he would give us time to develop something challenging that we can really sink our teeth into. At least it would be nice to get credit for all that we do to make him and our organization look good, but I doubt that will happen; he always wants the whole enchilada for himself. He is always dangling the carrot of private compliments in our faces, but we know they are insincere. He must think we are a bunch of cream puffs. Someday, we are not going to fill in the holes and he will get his pie in the lace. He'll be in a real stew and we won't be there to clean it up. Soon... He'll get his just desserts.

Now - here are the metaphors:

1. top banana: The person referred to is the boss or the top person in a group or organization.

2. he takes the cake: usually used in a negative sense meaning that the person or action referred to is disagreeable.

3. out to lunch: the person referred to is unaware Of important or obvious information, or is seemingly not present, mentally speaking; the person referred to doesn't have a clue about what is going on.

4. eating humble pie: publicly being forced to admit defeat and be apologetic

5. Swiss cheese; a plan that is like Swiss cheese is one that is full of holes; it's a plan that has a lot of possibilities for failure (Swiss cheese is made with lots of holes in it

6. cut the mustard: to achieve a standard of performance necessary for success (usually used in the negative)

7. done to a T: done to perfection (from cooking a steak on a grill - the steak is turned at the right time so it cooks evenly throughout and is then taken off the grill; so it is done to a turn, abbreviated to 'done to a T')

8. sink our teeth into: to get really involved with something in an interesting and substantive way

9. in a pickle: in trouble, in a mess

10. to take something with a grain of salt: to listen to a story or an explanation with considerable doubt, to not give much credit or importance to what was said

11. the whole enchilada: the whole or complete thing, everything (enchilada is a Mexican dish).

12. dangling the carrot: getting someone to do something by promising them a small reward in return (wagon drivers used to dangle a carrot in front of a donkey to get the donkey to chase after the carrot and therefore pull the cart)

13. cream puff: someone who is easily swayed or influenced or easily beaten (a cream puff is a delicate pastry filled with a thick sweet custard or cream-like substance)

14. to to have your cake and eat it too: to nave the advantage of both alternatives

15. pie in the face: the blame or responsibility for a bad plan or action is publicly credited to someone.

16. in a real stew: in trouble, in a state of worry or confusion (a stew is a mixture of meat potatoes. and vegetables in a thick hot brown sauce)

17. get his just desserts; to get what is coming to him in the form of justice or punishment for his wrongful actions (dessert is the sweet course of food served at the end of a meal)

18. as easy as pie: very easy, simple.

Think about it - everyday we use many metaphors that relate to food. You might ask your students to do a little individual research on this - for a couple of weeks they could try to collect some food metaphors themselves, and then part of one lesson could be a presentation on what the students either read or heard. Here are a few to get them (and you) started.

It's a piece of cake! •

A juicy bit of gossip

He's a real turkey

You're sweet; you're my honey

He's a real grease-ball

She looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth

How his pie, you're drivin' me crazy

You look good enough to eat

Anything more would just be frosting on the cake

From here on, it's all gravy

Chew the fat

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