19 Oct

Have you ever eaten humble pie?

Who taught: Jessy and Carl

source (listsoplenty.com)

Humble pie! Sounds yummy? As a matter of fact, it is a pie. I mean there is a recipe and you can make and eat it. But, have I eaten it? No. I have never seen it. The original recipe says it should be filled with liver, heart and other offal, mostly of cow but often deer. Now, it does not sound like yummy any more, does it?

In medieval times, people called this “umble pie.” The word, umble, originated from the French nomble which means “deer innards.” Since it has all of the inner parts of beef or deer, not the meat, you can figure out that it is not a food that higher-class people would eat. That is true. Humble pie was considered as inferior food. (source: wikipedia)

Writing this, I started to doubt that this food would still exist with the original recipe. People here in the U.S. would not eat it. Does anyone know that this pie is still out there?

The point is this is not just a food anymore. It is an expression! Let’s close eyes and think about we are all back to the past, medieval times. You are in front of me and looking at my eating humble pie. What would you think? You would be like, “This poor Terry! How could you eat that dirty humble pie.” And, I would be like, “What the…. I am eating this stupid pie in front of him. It is so humiliating.”

That is exactly the feeling you would have if you use this expression. The meaning of the expression is;

To eat humble pie is to apologize and face humiliation for a serious error.

In conclusion, you do not want to eat humble pie as little as possible in your life. So, if someone ask the question, “have you ever eaten humble pie?,” your answer should be, “No!” or “Maybe once!” But there is a time you have no choice but to eat humble pie. For that case, I found one article for you, “how to eat humble pie!”

7 thoughts on “Have you ever eaten humble pie?

  1. Pingback: Tweets that mention Have you ever eaten humble pie? | Learning English from Friends (LEfF) -- Topsy.com

  2. I can easily find so many expressions of pie-related.

    I’m just thinking of that expression “i’ll make you mincemeat out of you” from Desperate housewives. That is one of the expressions that my coworker from french uses a lot, but they say people don’t use it these days.

    Speaking of humble pie, Gob-Chang comes to my mind. You absolutely miss it, and you are dying to eat that, right?

    • I really miss Gob-Chang. Hard to find it here in PGH. I have never heard “I will make you mincemeat out of you.” What does it mean?

      • They say “Mincemeat” used to be made of mostly chopped meat centuries ago, but today mincemeat is made up of dried fruits, spices, and rum.

        When someone told you that he would make mincemeat out of you, he would chop you up into little bits. 🙂

        • Wow… that is harsh. I need to ask my American friends whether they really use this one or not. Knowing the meaning, I doubt they would use it a lot.

  3. I heard only old men use that express. Oh, I will go on a business trip to NY next month. How’s the weather there? Cold spell today here. 🙁

    • Not bad. Pretty typical fall weather here. I like fall here a lot. When are you gonna be there and how long? If you are gonna stay during weekend, I can head to NYC to meet you.

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