‘Food of the gods’ is used to describe a dish or drink so good that it seems too fine for ordinary mortals. It is a phrase of praise rather than a literal claim, said of anything from a rich dessert to a perfectly cooked meal, and it works because everyone understands the implied comparison: the gods of myth lived on something far better than what the rest of us eat. The phrase can be used seriously, as high praise, or lightly, as a bit of mock-grand exaggeration over something as ordinary as a good sandwich.
What’s the origin of the phrase ‘food of the gods’?
The idea behind the phrase goes back to classical mythology, where the Greek and Roman gods were said to live on ambrosia and nectar, substances that set them apart from humans and were sometimes credited with giving them their immortality. Calling something ‘food of the gods’ borrows that image directly: if the gods themselves ate it, it must be the best there is.
The phrase gained a second, more specific life through science. The cacao tree, source of chocolate, carries the scientific name Theobroma cacao, and Theobroma is built from Greek words meaning ‘god’ and ‘food’, so the botanical name translates directly as ‘food of the gods’. The naming is credited to the botanist Carl Linnaeus, though pinning down exactly when he did it is not straightforward: Cornell University Library’s own chocolate exhibition gives two different years for it, 1735 on one page and 1753 on another, so no single date can be confirmed from that source. Whatever the exact year, the Linnaean name is what cemented chocolate’s particular claim to the title, and popular writing about chocolate still treats ‘food of the gods’ as a literal translation of its scientific name rather than just a figure of speech.
Between the mythological image of ambrosia and the scientific name for cacao, the phrase has settled into general use as a way of calling any food exceptional, with chocolate remaining its most common and most literal application. It sits alongside other hyperbolic food praise such as ‘a dish fit for the gods’, which makes much the same comparison in slightly different words.