Page 42 - Erasmus+ : Food on Europe's Tables

37 Evaluation of the Results

Food in

Idioms and

Proverbs

or centuries, food has played The second big motif are fruit and
F a very important role in soci- vegetables, which were in people’s
ety because food unites people. So food in the past. This is also sup-
there is no surprise that there are a ported by historical references to
lot of food idioms and proverbs in the 19th century, since many people
our languages. Most of the idioms could not afford to buy more expen-
in central and northern European sive food such as different kinds of
countries deal with cakes, fruit and meat, their diet almost entirely con-
vegetables. sisted of fruit and vegetables. People
who were not rich only ate meat on
Some proverbs dealing with cakes special occasions such as festivities.
are translated as “as flat like a pan-
cake”, “a part of the cake“, “nutty
like a fruit cake“ and “easy like an
apple pie“. This does not necessar-
ily mean that people in the past ate
much cake, but that cake was an
important part of their culture and
symbolized a fine cuisine of the rich.

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