food words in the English language

"Forest Gump's favorite phrase "Life is like a box of chocolates" has entered the language as a way of explaining that one never knows what the next experience will be. It's no wonder the screenwriter chose food imagery to convey his philosophy. Food peppers everyday speech to such an extent that it's practically unavoidable. We fish for compliments, beef about injustice, butter up the powers that be, and ham it up to get a laugh. A pretty woman's a hot tomato, a brainy student's an egghead, a muscled he-man is beefcake, and a coward is just plain chicken. We table discussions, tap sources, cook up new ideas, pull down menus on our computer screens, and offer recipes for success. We toast the bride and groom, roast our fellows at honorific dinners, cajole people who are slow as molasses to wake up and smell the coffee, act cool as a cucumber when we get caught with our hands in the cookie jar, and turn beet red when we are obliged to eat our words. Dollars to donuts you can bet that this week's selection of terms is by no means the whole enchilada." -Edythe Preet (epreet@cox.net)

Learning English idioms and phrases that aren't meant to be taken literally cause such headaches for those trying to learn the language ;) I want to know the origins of those phrases because when I tutor kids who are learning English, they inevitably ask about them at some point. I haven't tutored for a long time, but I only miss it a little. I've been looking at online tutoring lately.