Series

Photography by Mynette Laine; more winged stunners in her bird set.

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Read the introductory Edible Idiom post, and browse the list of French idioms featured so far.

This week’s entry is really an adage more than an idiom. It goes, “Faute de grives, on mange des merles” and can also appear as, “Faute de grives, on se contente de merles.”

Literally translated as, “In want of thrushes, one eats (or settles for) blackbirds,” it means that one must find a way to make do with what’s available. In other words, beggars can’t be choosers.

Example, from the real-life greenmarket situation that inspired this post: “Vous n’avez plus de poires ? Tant pis, je vais vous prendre des pommes. Faute de grives, on mange des merles !” “You’re all out of pears? Never mind, I’ll have some apples. In want of thrushes, one eats blackbirds!”

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This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Read the introductory Edible Idiom post, and browse the list of French idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Ecrire des tartines.”

Literally translated as, “writing tartines” (a tartine is a slice of bread topped with some sort of spread, such as butter or jam), it means writing reams, or being unnecessarily wordy.

Example: “J’étais surprise que sa lettre soit si courte ; d’habitude, il m’écrit des tartines.” “I was surprised his letter was so short; he usually writes me tartines.”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

This colloquial expression can also appear in the singular (“écrire une tartine”) and is derived from the 18th-century journalists’ slang, in which une tartine was a very long (and, it is implied, boring) article or speech. A rather self-explanatory image; I always picture the writer or speaker fastidiously buttering a long piece of split baguette.

This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Read the introductory Edible Idiom post, and browse the list of French idioms featured so far.

This week’s idiom is, “Ne pas savoir si c’est du lard ou du cochon” (or: “Se demander si c’est du lard ou du cochon”).

Literally translated as, “not knowing whether it’s lard* or pork**” (or: wondering whether it’s lard or pork), it means not knowing what to think/believe. It is most often used when you’re faced with a fact or statement that comes from an unreliable source, or when you’re not sure whether someone is being serious or pulling your leg.

Example: “Il a un humour très particulier, on ne sait jamais si c’est du lard ou du cochon.” “He has a very peculiar sense of humor, you never know whether it’s lard or pork.”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

The idiom’s origin was not entirely clear to me — lard is pork, so what is there to hesitate about? — so I turned to my parents’ copy of Claude Duneton’s Bouquet des expressions imagées.

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This is part of a series on French idiomatic expressions that relate to food. Read the introductory Edible Idiom post, and browse the list of French idioms featured so far.

This week’s expression is, “Avoir du pain sur la planche.”

Literally translated as, “having bread on the board,” it means having a lot of work to do, or having a lot on one’s plate*, with the added notion that the tasks in question are somewhat tedious.

Example: “J’ai accepté de coudre les costumes pour le spectacle de danse de mon fils : j’ai du pain sur la planche !” “I’ve agreed to sew the costumes for my son’s dance recital: I have bread on the board!”

Listen to the idiom and example read aloud:

I had always assumed that the board referred to here was une planche à pain (a bread cutting board) or a simple planche à découper (a cutting board) — the difference between the two is that the former includes some sort of crumb-collecting contraption — and that “having bread on the board” meant that you had lots of slicing to do. And if the loaf was a bit stale, it would take some effort to work your way through it.

My go-to idiomatic ressources, however, steered me in a different direction.

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