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Food sayings


Dinah Sarah

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In Yiddish, if you get financially shafted on a deal or job of some sort, you say that you got "bubkes" on that deal--figuratively, the word means "zero, zilch", but literally it translates as "beans."

And then there's always the classic making a "gantze tsimmis" -- literally, making a huge dish of that Jewish specialty; figuratively, to make a big huge hairy deal out of some situation or event.

Then there was this expression my mother taught me: "hocking a chinik;" she said its literal translation was "chopping a teapot" (!); figuratively, it meant making a huge noise of meaningless jabbering.

My mom also knew the one about "may you be like an onion, with your head in the ground and your feet in the air!" She said it was used as a curse! However, she never taught me the Yiddish for it.

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In Yiddish, if you get financially shafted on a deal or job of some sort, you say that you got "bubkes" on that deal--figuratively, the word means "zero, zilch", but literally it translates as "beans."

And then there's always the classic making a "gantze tsimmis" -- literally, making a huge dish of that Jewish specialty; figuratively, to make a big huge hairy deal out of some situation or event.

Then there was this expression my mother taught me: "hocking a chinik;" she said its literal translation was "chopping a teapot" (!); figuratively, it meant making a huge noise of meaningless jabbering.[...]

My parents used to tell me to stop hocking a cheinik, by which they meant going on and on about something. I was always told that "bubkes" meant goat crap, which is very small and worthless. Perhaps that was a slang meaning for the word. "Making a tsimmes" was also part of their vocabulary ("Don't make a tsimmes"...except on Pesach:laugh:).

Michael aka "Pan"

 

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Come to Wisconsin and smell our dairy air.

I'm embarrassed to admit how many times I had to read this before I got it. Wait, I haven't actually given a number yet. :rolleyes:

Judy Jones aka "moosnsqrl"

Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly.

M.F.K. Fisher

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My father's best line to date (looking at the food left on my little brother's plate):

"Alligator eyes outdone your bird-dog butt?"

:biggrin:

In a similar vein, did anybody offer "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach"?

SB (whose "little" brother was a picky eater)

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I should have known not to use a good one in the topic title:

He's all crust and no pie!

Thanks for thr M+A.

:)

This topic is an evergreen. I've merged this thread with an earlier thread. Also note the links in Mooshmouse's post (#3 in the thread), except the link to an older "Food sayings" thread, which is dead and was presumably merged into a related thread.

Carry on! There are so many food sayings in so many languages that I'm sure we'll never post them all!

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