French culinary expression: THE END OF BEANS
" It is the end of beans ! » You launch the phrase in a joking tone, while thinking of this tale of the Grimm brothers which amazed you so much when you were a child, Jacques and the Beanstalk.
But no magic seems to preside over the birth of this expression dating from the 20th century which, by the admission of all the specialists, remains very obscure.
We suspect that what made the richness of the dish was more the profusion of meat than vegetables (then called "bean beans" or "bean peas").
An unluxurious food that satisfies, the pulse bean has more recently become the symbol of food served in communities (boarding schools, pensions, prisons), and the expression "beans!" » has been used since the beginning of the 20th century with the same meaning as other exclamations involving a commodity of little price (plums, loquats): nothing at all!
"The end of the beans" - the moment when even what is worthless is lacking - would therefore embody a figure of poverty at its height, of absolute scarcity, an image transparent to all, whether it was born in the slang of the trenches , as some commentators think, or simply in the popular language of the early 20th century when the main concern remained to “boil the pot”!
