French Idioms with Food Explained for Everyday Conversation

Updated 2nd June 2025

French idioms often use food to express everyday ideas, making them both fun and practical to learn. These sayings reveal a lot about French culture, where meals and flavors play an important role in daily life. By understanding food-related idioms, learners can sound more natural and connect better with native speakers.

Many French expressions involve fruits, vegetables, meals, or wine. They range from simple phrases to more colorful sayings tied to hunger and enjoyment. Mastering these idioms helps build vocabulary and adds a richer touch to conversations about food and life. Just pick a few to begin with and remember the ones that you’ll be likely to use the most. C’est du gâteau (easy as pie) !

French people often use vegetable-related phrases to express ideas clearly and vividly. For example, Les carottes sont cuites means “it’s all finished” or “the situation cannot be changed.” Another common phrase, Mêle-toi de tes oignons, literally asks someone to “mind their onions,” which means to mind their own business.

Some expressions mix food with money, like Mettre du beurre dans ses épinards, which talks about adding butter to spinach, meaning to improve one’s income. If someone says Ne pas avoir un radis, it means they have no money. Other sayings involve confusion or frustration, such as Être dans les choux (“to be in the cabbages”), used when someone feels lost or out of place.

These idioms show how food, including vegetables and cheese, helps color everyday French conversation.

Food and wine inspire many French idioms. For example, raconter des salades means to tell lies. It literally means “to tell salads”. You could also hear the following colloquial expressions in conversations :

• Etre dans les choux
  • Literally : to be in the cabbage
  • Meaning : be all at sea, not be with it, be lost

For example, we could say “Pierre est vraiment dans les choux aujourd’hui” which means “Pierre is really all at sea today”.

• Se prendre le choux 
  • Literally : to take yourself the cabbage
  • Meaning : to lose your temper, drive someone mad, worry unnecessarily

For instance, “Arrête de me prendre le choux” means “Stop driving me mad!”.

• Etre un navet
  • Literally : be a turnip
  • Meaning : it’s a really bad movie or book

“Ce film est un vrai navet!” is used when a movie is really bad.

For more vocabulary with yummy food, feel free to read our list of useful French phrases at the restaurant.

In addition, French uses fruit in many colorful sayings. For example, avoir la pêche means to feel great or be full of energy. It literally means “to have the peach.” Similarly, avoir la banane means to be happy, as if you have a banana.

Another common phrase is couper la poire en deux, which means to find a middle ground or compromise. It literally translates to “cut the pear in two.” This idiom is often used when two people share something fairly.

Some expressions show emotions: tomber dans les pommes means to faint or pass out. It literally says “fall in the apples.” When someone is very proud or full of themselves, they might be said to prendre le melon — “take the melon.”

Other fruit idioms include c’est la cerise sur le gâteau, which means “the cherry on the cake.” This describes the final touch that makes something perfect.

And here is a table of some common fruit idioms and their meanings :

Food and wine inspire many French idioms too. For example, cracher dans la soupe means to insult the source of your help. It literally means “spit in the soup.” It is said about someone who is ungrateful.

Someone who is quick-tempered might be called soupe au lait, meaning “milk soup.” When someone gets angry, the saying avoir la moutarde qui monte au nez describes the feeling of mustard rising to the nose.

To dismiss someone rudely, the phrase va te faire cuire un œuf means “go cook yourself an egg,” and it works like “go away” or “get lost.”

Casser du sucre sur le dos de quelqu’un means to gossip about someone behind their back, and avoir un pépin says you have a problem, literally “have a pip.”

More examples include:

• En faire tout un fromage – to make a big deal out of something
• Faire la crêpe – to sunbathe
• Avoir le cul bordé de nouilles – to be a lucky so-and-so
• Mettre de l’eau dans son vin – to soften one’s opinions or back down

• Avoir du pain sur la planche
• • Literally : to have bread on the plate
  • Meaning : to have a lot on your plate

• Pour une bouchée de pain
  • Literally : for a bite of bread
  • Meaning : for a trifle, for next to nothing

• Ne pas en perdre une miette
  • Literally : not waste a crumb
  • Meaning : take everything in, not miss a thing

• Avoir du blé
  • Literally : to have wheat
  • Meaning : to be wealthy

A bientôt ! Feel free to contact me for more French idioms during my private French classes in Paris and/or online.