Nepali proverbs about food and feasting (भोज), with meanings in English

It is hunger that is tasty, not the food. When you are truly hungry, any meal is delicious. It is often said to a fussy eater.

An empty stomach cannot think. Look after basic needs first, because nobody reasons well while hungry.

The hungry one says "let's eat on this side of the hill," the full one says "let's eat on the other side." Need wants things now, and comfort can afford to put them off.

The cook's son goes hungry. The person closest to something is often the last to benefit from it, like the shoemaker's children going barefoot.

Eat a lot and it becomes waste, eat a little and it becomes strength. Overeating does no good, while moderate eating keeps you strong.

Eat too much and even sugar turns bitter. Too much of a good thing spoils it. It works as well for compliments and holidays as for sweets.

One meal a day makes a yogi, two meals a pleasure-seeker, three meals an invalid. An old rule of thumb about eating, said half seriously.

For one who knows how to eat it, it is medicine, for one who does not, it is poison. The same thing helps or harms depending on how it is used.

More people die from not knowing how to eat than from not having enough to eat. Bad habits do more harm than scarcity. It is a fitting warning in feast week.

"No, no, I couldn't," then four manas once they start. A mana is an old measure of grain. Someone who acts shy about taking, then takes far more than their share. Every family feast has one.

Give it for free and they will drink a whole mana of vinegar. People will take anything that costs nothing, even something unpleasant.

The old woman who went to eat the fish head drowned in the curry. Greed for one small prize ends in a much bigger loss.

They cannot eat properly and blame the cook. A kitchen version of the dancer who blames the courtyard.

Do not think of disgust while eating, do not think of debt while sleeping. Some worries only ruin the moment, so set them aside when you sit down to eat or lie down to rest.

Work like a servant, eat like a king. Put everything into the work, then enjoy the meal without guilt.

Borrowing money to eat ghee. Taking on debt for luxuries you cannot afford. Families who borrow for the festival goat and new clothes have heard this one.

No oil in the house, yet wants to eat sel roti. Sel roti is the ring-shaped fried bread made for Tihar, and it needs plenty of oil. Wanting the treat without the means to make it.

The day the rice runs out is Ekadashi, the day the pocket is empty is Aunsi. Ekadashi and Aunsi are fasting days, so the joke is calling forced hunger a religious fast.

Eating the laddus in your mind with ghee. Daydreaming, where an imaginary sweet costs nothing, so you may as well add ghee.

A shortage of salt in the king's house. Missing the most basic thing where there should be plenty of everything.

"Where did the ghee spill?" "Into the lentils." Nothing was lost, because it ended up where it would have gone anyway. Said when money stays in the family.

Hot milk that you can neither swallow nor spit out. A situation where every choice hurts.

You have to put up with kicks from the cow that gives milk. People who are useful to you sometimes come with a difficult side.

The cat as witness to the milk. Asking the most interested party to vouch for something.

Dried fish left in a cat's care. Trusting the very person most likely to take it, like the fox guarding the henhouse.

Chanting the word "sugar" will not sweeten your mouth. Talking about something is not the same as doing it.

The teacher is jaggery, the student is sugar. Jaggery is raw cane sugar, and refined sugar comes from it, so the student has gone further than the teacher.

The grapes you cannot eat are sour. The same idea as Aesop's fox: running down what you could not get.

The price of the mango, and the price of the stone too. Getting paid twice for the same thing. Much like "having your cake and eating it."

Kalu does the work, the bear eats the maize. One person does the labour and someone else enjoys the harvest or the credit.

Sing the Gita of whoever's food you eat. People praise whoever feeds them. The older form is "sing the praises of the one whose salt you eat."

Bread is tasty when it is oily, words are tasty when they are rough. Food should be rich, but honest, blunt talk is what helps.