Food-Related Idioms from 'I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears'
To fish the cake: to patch things up (Spanish)
I'm Not Hanging Noodles on Your Ears and Other Intriguing Idioms From Around the World by Jag Ballah is a collection of idioms with their meanings accompanied by illustrations by New Yorker cartoonist Julia Suits. We have a few food-related idioms to share from this book, which comes out on June 16. More illustrations after the jump.
One hand cannot hold two watermelons: one thing at a time (Iranian)
Onions should grow from your navel: an insult (Yiddish)
To give squash/pumpkins: to stand someone up (Spanish, Latin America)
He should grow like an onion with his head in the ground: go take a hike (Yiddish)
I'm not hanging noodles on your ears: I'm not pulling your leg (Russian)
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14 Comments:
That looks like a fun book :-)
I have some Japanese idioms off the top of my head..
"Don't let the daughter in law eat autumn eggplants"
(the MIL doesn't want to share tasty autumn eggplants (being mean to the DIL), or, because eggplants cools one's body, the DIL shouldn't eat too much eggplants because she needs to get pregnant).
"To fish a snapper with a shrimp" (a small shrimp= cheap bait, a snapper = expensive big fish, meaning to gain a whole a lot by paying or doing very little)
"Dango (skewered mochi) rather than blossoms" (one prefers food than pretty things)
"My navel boils tea" (when something is extremely ridiculous or silly)
"like bamboo shoots after rain" (when something grows extremely fast)
hmw0029 at 12:08PM on 06/15/09
I have another couple for you, both of which are perhaps best left unillustrated:
"The other side of a pig's stomach is lined with poop"--this is the Cantonese equivalent of "There are two sides to every coin," and makes better sense if you understand that pig's stomach is a much-loved food item in China.
"Knocking pears out of a tree with one's [impolite term for male genitalia excerpted]" is Russian for sitting around and doing nothing.
Michele Humes at 12:10PM on 06/15/09
2 more...
'you cannot wrestle a pumpkin pie beneath dracula's shadow' (romanian for 'take it easy')
'hamburger? more like manburger.' (german for discussing really attractive and/or 'marriage material' hamburgers.)
seriouspetes at 12:29PM on 06/15/09
This is my kind of subject! Thanks to all who contribute comments, to Robyn for bringing it up, and to Jag Bhalla for the book! So far, the noodles are my favorite, and there seems to be a kind of theme arising from the onions. More, more!
Likeswords at 1:12PM on 06/15/09
@hmw0029: Thanks for the idioms!
@Michele: I'm totally gonna try and fit "The other side of a pig's stomach is lined with poop" into daily conversation.
@pete: I expect you to illustrate these now.
@Likeswords: Some other ones (sans illustrations):
To be a potato: to be easy (Spanish, Chile)
To be the cheese on pasta: to be perfect (Italian)
To have butter, the money from butter, and the woman who made it: to have it all (French)
Roll as a sausage: get lost (Russian)
roboppy at 1:55PM on 06/15/09
Glee, thanks for this! Food idioms rock!
Some of my faves are Japanese ones:
Okoge: literally means burnt rice stuck on a clay pot...idiomatically means fruit fly/fag hag, as (you guessed it!) the idiom for gay man is clay pot rice cooker! ;D
effingfoodie at 2:23PM on 06/15/09
man, yiddish folk have got something against poor onions, huh?
(i'd like to meet the man who can knock down those pears....lol!)
gastronomeg at 2:32PM on 06/15/09
@effingfoodie, I heard about that usage of okoge from someone not Japanese and I was not aware of the coined term nor the movie. I've never heard of people using the term.
Okoge (burned rice) has a bit of history- the old rice-cooking device (okama, that can also mean gay men, which is actually used) used to produce okoge, but when people switched to rice cookers, some people missed okoge part of the rice. So they invented "okoge mode" for rice cookers. I think most recent ones have okoge mode nowadays.
ok I came up with more
"botamochi (red bean paste-coated mochi) fell from a shelf" means you got lucky. (my fav idiom!)
"Grabbing millet with a wet hand" to gain easily, (as millet sticks to a wet hand easily)
"to sell oil" to take your time excessively instead of getting to a point A directly. apparently it comes from oil sellers in Edo period.
"a carp on a cutting board" means someone in a deadly situation who is kind of giving up.
"packed like sushi" A Japanese version of "packed like sardines". best for describing commuting trains in Tokyo.. ugh
"to grind sesame seeds" to kiss someone's butt.
Now I need to face the reality and go back to work.
hmw0029 at 3:34PM on 06/15/09
French have many food-related idioms: my favourite is "Casser du sucre sur le dos de quelq'un", which translated should sound like "To crash sugar on someone's back", and it means you are saying malicious and mean stuff about someone :)
SaraMaternini at 2:04AM on 06/16/09
@Sara: But sugar is sweet and DELICIOUS!...:) Ahhwell.
roboppy at 12:38PM on 06/16/09
If you like these, check out Chocolate and Zucchini. Clotilde has been writing a bunch of French edible idioms. Here is the archive. I love some of the things that would never make it through a translation...
Kerry Saretsky at 6:58PM on 06/18/09
How about the classic: "In vino veritas"?
buffy at 10:41PM on 06/21/09
Fry the squid. A cantonese idiom for getting fired.
Feefiefoefum at 10:24AM on 06/22/09
Scraping tapioca. Trobriand Islander for, er, ah, enjoying oneself.
MarvinDog at 5:10PM on 06/22/09