Italian Food Idioms

You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.

And I’m Martha Barnette. One of the most memorable meals I ever had in my life was in the little town of Bassano del Grappa outside of Venice, Italy. And it was high season for asparagus there. You know, they have this wonderful asparagus there in northern Italy. And everybody was really excited.

I was there with an Italian family. And so they brought out the first course, and I don’t remember if it was soup or salad, but there was asparagus in it. It was fantastic. And then they brought out the next course, which also had asparagus in it. And then they brought out the third course, which also was asparagus-based, and the fourth course, and the fifth course. And by the sixth course, I was kind of looking at it like, what? And the woman next to me said, what? You don’t like asparagy? And I said, well, yes, I do. And then the seventh course came, and the eighth course. There were nine courses of asparagus.

That’s great.

You were disparaging the asparagus?

And I was reminded of that when I came across a treasure trove of idioms in Italian involving food, and I wanted to share some of them with you.

One of them is non si friggie mica con l’acqua, which means literally we don’t fry with water around here. It means, metaphorically, take us seriously. We don’t do things by halves. We go all the way whenever we do anything.

I like that.

We don’t fry with water around here.

There’s another one that translates as, it’s like cabbage as a mid-afternoon snack. And what that means is it has nothing to do with it. It’s off topic. Whatever you’re talking about doesn’t match what we’re talking about. Cabbage is a mid-afternoon snack.

And I like this one that means to be like parsley. If you’re describing something as being like parsley, it means it’s everywhere. I guess parsley is everywhere in Italian cooking.

And then I like this one that translates as eat the soup or jump out the window, which means you have no choice. You have to do one or the other.

Right, right, right, right.

Poop or get off the pot, right?

Something like that.

Yeah.

And instead of saying don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched, they use a phrase that translates as don’t eat the egg in the hen’s body.

Oh, wow.

That’s a vision.

Right?

That’s really vivid.

This is wonderful stuff, Martha.

Yeah, one more I’ll share with you. Esere alla fruta, which means to have reached the fruit, and that means we’ve reached the end.

Oh, the end of the whole, finally, how do you mix asparagus and fruit?

I guess maybe we had fruit for the last year. I think there was asparagus ice cream. You know, the Germans, I understand, are just as fevered about asparagus when it’s in season.

Oh, yeah, sparkle.

I think this is a Europe-wide thing. It’s a big deal. It really is.

I wish I’d been a little bit more prepared, but it was wonderful. You are reminding me of my favorite meal ever, which happens to be in Europe as well. It was one of the islands in Stockholm, and it was August, and it was a greenhouse, and we ate on the grass, and we had pittipana, and just some basic Swedish fare, nothing fancy, and the company was good, and the food was good, and the wine was good, and the sun was perfect, and it was a great day.

Memorable meals.

We’d love to hear your food words. I know a couple of these that Martha said sounded like something that could be from the American South or something in the Northeast, or maybe they say it in the mountains, or it’s an Alaskan expression. I know you’ve got these. Share them with us, 877-929-9673.

Or tell us the whole story in email to words@waywordradio.org.