Conversations among the youth today are increasingly shaped by shared cultural references, such as memes, movies, reels, and social media. For a large section of society with access to phones and popular culture, these references have become shortcuts for expressing emotions and even ideas. Take them away, and we may struggle to express ourselves, and the void from not having something familiar to quote or point to would be greatly felt.
This raises an interesting question: before cinema and mass media, when even news took days or weeks to travel, what shaped the metaphors, similes, and shared references for people to converse? What became a common experience for people who spoke the same language?
The answer is food.
Dr Sudha Seshayyan, a medical practitioner and a language enthusiast, notes, “Everyday experiences of human beings get transformed into expressions. And the most common experiences we share is food. That is how names of food turned into metaphors or similes.”
Borrowing expressions from food is common across languages. In Western cultures, particularly English, expressions such as ‘cool as a cucumber’or ‘couch potato’ tend to draw parallels between food and human behaviour, appearance, or character. In Indian languages too, including in Tamil, such parallels exist.
‘Vengayam’ (onion) denotes a person with no substance, as the vegetable can be peeled and has no essence inside, Dr Sudha says, adding that the same applies to ‘Molaga’ (chilli), used to refer to someone sharp or short-tempered. ‘Vennai’ (butter) too is used to call someone spineless as it melts.
To this list, Kamaraj, a Tamil language researcher, adds, “‘Mundhirikottai’, is used as an expression because cashew seed hangs outside the fruit, unlike others. Because of this physically peculiar imagery, someone who is too eager or puts themselves forward is called a ‘mundhirikottai’.”
Some other expressions like ‘vazhapazha somberi’ and ‘vaayila vada sudradhu’ emerge directly from everyday experiences with food. Since a banana is among the easiest fruits to peel and eat, calling someone a ‘vazhapazha somberi’ suggests a person so lazy that they would expect someone else to peel a banana for them. ‘Vaayila vada sudradhu’ draws on the laborious process of making vadais to describe someone who is all talk and no action.
Food and hierarchy
In Tamil, metaphors are predominantly shaped by social hierarchies — class and caste, making these comparisons less neutral than they might appear. As native Tamilians, we may have heard and used so many such expressions without giving it much thought: ‘Nee periya paruppa?’, ‘Periya pista va?’, and so on.
Dr Sudha says, “Pistachios are imported. We (Indians) don’t produce it as much, making it an expensive treat. So someone who is maybe boastful or thinks too good of themselves is asked, ‘Nee periya pista va?’. A similar explanation applies to the usage of ‘Biscoth’ (an accented way of saying biscuit). Biscuits were not available or accessible for all, the colonial reign introduced it to us. Since the British were powerful, biscuits naturally were reserved for the higher class, and therefore the expression, ‘Nee periya biscoth-ah?’,” she shares.
Kamaraj, adds that paruppu (dal) too was expensive for a large section of the society, especially the lowered caste. “Paruppu, pista, vennai, were all expensive and were socially understood as food meant for the upper caste and class. Hence, the expression of asking someone if they are as important or as big as paruppu, pista, or vennai, came into existence.”
The term ‘biscuit’ is also used to explain a situation when someone has deceived or fooled another. Dr Sudha says that since biscuits are sweet and people are enamored by them, it is easy to deceive someone by giving them a biscuit. “Hence the expression, ‘Biscuit kuduthutanga.’ The same goes for halwa too,” she shares.
Even expressions like ‘manga madayan’, ‘Nee pazhaya soru’, or ‘Thottuka oorgaya?’ stem from class hierarchies and social practices. Kamaraj elucidates that the practice of buying fresh vegetables daily and cooking them is relatively recent and that in earlier Tamil households, even among affluent and upper-caste communities, meals often consisted of old rice accompanied by pickles, making certain fresh produce seem less significant. Manga, he notes, was associated with pickling and was once so abundant that the word acquired the meaning as a way of putting someone down. “Some researchers say that poets used ‘ma madayan’ where ‘ma’ means big or huge, and that over the years, in usage, it became ‘manga madayan’,” he notes.
Akin to Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam natives too associate less significance to locally available and easily accessible foods. ‘Thenga’ (coconut) in Malayalam and ‘Vankaya’ (brinjal) in Telugu are common examples from neighbouring states, revealing the social life of the languages we hear, speak, and infer.