Idioms: Food and Drink
Food and drink idioms is the B1–B2 figurative collection built on culinary metaphors. A piece of cake (easy), the icing on the cake (a bonus), spill the beans (reveal a secret), in a nutshell (in summary), butter someone up (flatter), bring home the bacon (earn a living), take with a pinch of salt (be sceptical), put all your eggs in one basket (depend on one option), go bananas (get very excited or angry). Learners build the food-idiom range.
This worksheet builds B1–B2 fluency with food-and-drink idioms.
Worksheet preview
What’s inside:
- An idiom bank with 20 food-and-drink expressions
- Matching task: idiom to meaning
- Gap-fill in conversational contexts
- Production task: write a dialogue using three food idioms
- Full Answer Key plus Teacher Notes
Common challenges: Food-idiom transparency varies — a piece of cake is semi-transparent; butter someone up is opaque. Cultural variation: some food idioms (put all your eggs in one basket) translate; some (bring home the bacon) don’t. Register: food idioms are mostly casual.
For: Adult and teenage learners (14+) at CEFR B1–B2, in intermediate and upper-intermediate classes, 1:1 lessons, or self-study. Maps onto Cambridge B2 First (FCE) Reading-Use of English. Part of the Daily Life Idioms collection — the natural next step is Idioms: Weather Expressions.
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