Meaning
Food - or by extension anything - of superb, luxurious quality, so fine it would be worthy of the gods. Mostly a playful, elevated compliment about a meal or a spread, sometimes broadened to any exemplary treat. The register is jocular-grand. The sense has drifted a long way from the grisly original, in which the dish was a murdered man to be carved like a ritual offering. Playfully elevated register; a hyperbolic compliment to food or hospitality, sometimes to anything superb. Regional use: General English (Shakespearean origin).
Origin
Julius Caesar, Act 2 Scene 1 (c. 1599). In the conspirators' midnight meeting, Brutus argues that Caesar must be killed boldly but not wrathfully, as a solemn sacrifice rather than a butchery: 'Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods, / Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds' (Folger text). The Phrase Finder treats the expression as Shakespeare's coinage. It passed into general English stripped of its murderous context, settling on food of exceptional quality and, by extension, anything superbly fine - a striking case of sense-drift, since the original dish was the assassinated Caesar himself, and most modern users have no idea they are quoting a murder plot.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- a feast fit for the gods
- a meal fit for the gods
- fit for the gods
Usage Examples
- The tasting menu at the old harbour inn was, honestly, a dish fit for the gods.
- Her wedding buffet was a spread fit for the gods: three roasts, two desserts and a cheese tower.
- They laid on a breakfast fit for the gods before the finalists' match.