Food Proverbs

Food Proverbs Americans like to use proverbs to dispense wisdom and transmit moral values. Food and drink may become the literal subject of a proverb, or the vehicle for transmitting a metaphorical message. While many American proverbs are home grown, some have origins in Great Britain. Here are just a few examples with culinary themes:

• Eat to live; do not live to eat.

• Take all you want, but eat all you take.

• An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

• An apple never falls far from the tree.

• One bad apple spoils the lot.

• Don’t jump from the frying pan into the fire.

• A watched pot never boils.

• The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.

• Honey is sweet, but bees sting.

• You have the take the bitter with the sweet.

• A merry host makes merry guests.

• Hunger is a good kitchen. Hunger is the best sauce. Hunger makes hard beans sweet. Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

• Where there is cheese, there are always mice.

• Coffee boiled is coffee spoiled.

• A cook is no better than her stove.

• Why buy the cow when you can get the milk free?

• A man takes a drink, then the drink takes the man.

• Forbidden fruit is the sweetest. He that would have the fruit must climb the tree.

• One man’s meat is another man’s poison.

• You can’t pick up spilled milk. Don’t cry over spilled milk.

• You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.

• Everything is not all peaches and cream.

• First catch your rabbit and then make your stew

• After breakfast sit awhile; after supper walk a mile. Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

• You can’t have your cake and eat it too.