13 German expressions about food and cooking

Literally, it means "Having tomatoes on the eyes": The colorful idiom is the equivalent of the rhetorical question "Am I blind, or what?" used when one may have overlooked something quite evident. The expression comes from an image of someone who has red, swollen eyes, perhaps from oversleeping. A variant is "Habe ich Knöpfe vor den Augen?": Do I have buttons over my eyes?

Literally, this translates into "too many cooks will ruin the porridge," but of course we say in English "too many cooks spoil the broth." Before everyone tries to add their own two cents to a stew — and rendering it an indistinct, tasteless culinary hodge-podge — it's maybe best to steer clear of the kitchen and let one person be head chef. By the way, "Chef" in German means "boss."

Things can get pretty hot in the kitchen on any day, but outside of it, most people want to stay cool about things. Still, anger can sometimes get the best of any of us. In German, you say you're "cooking" or "boiling" over with anger, or the English equivalent of "I'm steaming!"

Literally, "your eyes eat along with you," this implies that presentation is key when it comes to food preparation. Your eyes should delight in what you are about in ingest, just as your palate does. So maybe it just should be "a feast for the eyes"!

If you ever compare yourself too much with other people or want to quell your feelings of inadequacy, then one German expression will certainly come in handy: "Sie kochen auch nur mit Wasser," or "they also only cook with water," meaning other people are also only human and have their own flaws.

Anyone who has anything to say about anything can, literally, "add his or her mustard" to the mash. It means expressing one's opinion, or, the phrase coined in English: "to add one's two cents to a matter."

Sticking to the color yellow, here's another bright expression: "That's not the yellow (or yolk) of the egg." It means: it's not all what it's cracked up to be or not the best thing since sliced bread. Little kids know where that expression comes from instinctively: give them a hard boiled egg, and they will almost always delight in the ocher orb at its center.

A sort of variant of "sie kochen auch nur mit Wasser," this means "nothing is eaten as hotly as it is cooked." In other words, after a bit of tumult, things will simmer down, or things are ultimately not so bad as they first might appear. So, chill out, and things will be just fine.

Literally, it means "the dumbest farmer harvests the biggest potatoes." What it implies is that intelligent people are more inclined to self-doubt and hesitation, sometimes preventing them from taking the leap that could lead to good fortune. The subtext to the German expression: Don't think so much and you might just move ahead.

While tea obviously is not a food, water is of course boiled to make it, so it rules in the category of cooking in a round-about way. Besides, the expression evokes a cozy image, so why not? In general, it literally means "wait and drink a cup of tea while you do so." The English equivalent is the mere "just wait and see" to calm one's nerves.

"Never praise the cake before the cut" is a variant of another German expression "Niemals den Tag vor dem Abend loben" (don't praise the day before the evening). We might say in English "don't count your chickens before they're hatched" — so never anticipate how something might turn out.

"If you finish what's on your plate, the weather will be good tomorrow." Apparently, there was a translation mistake into High German from the dialect, or Plattdeutsch: "Wenn du dien Teller leer ittst, dann gifft dat morgen goodes wedder." Or: "If you finish your plate, there will be something good again tomorrow." "Wedder," which also means "wieder" (again), was coined "Wetter" (weather).

Literally, it means "love goes through the stomach." It implies that food and love go hand-in-hand, that you can win someone over or express your love through a meal you prepare for someone. It means sharing and intensifying love and life by cooking and eating together. How scrumptious, just like the cookies shown as necklaces above that say: "I love you"!