5 Foods That Find Their Way Into Your Idioms

As food bloggers, we sometimes indulge in the use of food clichés or, as we prefer to call them, food idioms in our writing. But food idioms don’t have a place in writing; everybody uses them every day. They’ve become so common that we’ve forgotten to associate them with the foods that they were born from. We take you through a range of foods that we use in our day- to- day conversations. 

1) Pie

‘As Easy As Pie’: A phrase used to describe an activity that was simple or easy.  Anybody who has every tried their hand at baking would know that creating a pie is not easy, and more often than not it can end up in a soggy mess. So, we’ll assume that the idiom is referring to the ease with which one can eat a pie. You’ll find no arguments from us there.

‘Have a Finger in Every Pie’: This idiom generally refers to an individual who is involved in a range of activities and positions. It also generally implies negative connotations; after all, why would you eat a pie that someone else’s finger was in?

2) Cake

‘Piece of cake’: This is used to describe something that was extraordinarily easy. Similar to the pie idiom, we’ll assume that this refers to eating the cake and not actually baking it. After all, how hard is it to scarf down slices of a moist chocolate cake, or creamy cheese cake slices?

‘Sell Like Hot Cakes’: This refers to an item that is in great demand; take the Harry Potter books for instance. Here in India, hot cakes don’t sell all that fast. Maybe we could rebrand it ‘Sell like Vada Pavs’ instead?

3) Eggs

‘Put all your eggs into one basket’: A person who places all his resources in a single place. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket! Cook them for breakfast. Or better yet, put them in a cake.

‘Walking on eggshells’: When you take great care not to upset someone by monitoring your conversation and behaviour. This term is thought to have originated in diplomatic circles, where diplomats were able to tread lightly around each situation without offending anyone too much.

4) Nuts

‘In a nutshell’: When something is explained as simply as possible. We’d assume that the term was created because nuts are generally tiny and hence simple.

‘Hard Nut to Crack’: A person, or a situation that is difficult to understand. Is anybody else thinking of the bad nuts in the Nut Room in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?

5) Cheese

‘Big Cheese’: Generally used to refer to a very important person such as the President of a firm. It is often used in a negative term, by people under the said ‘big cheese’.

‘So Cheesy’: Something that is stupid, silly or repeated so many times that it has become completely un-original. However, we fail to understand why such a negative connotation is related to something as tasty as a hunk of cheese.