Eat the cherries off the top?

May 12, 2015 8:07 PM

What’s a good metaphor for taking what you want and leaving the rest? Eat the icing and put the rest of the cupcake back on the plate? Eat the inside of the Oreo and put the rest back? Pick out all the cashews and leave the peanuts? I know there's a popular expression, I just can't remember what it is.
posted by Clotilde to Writing & Language (33 answers total)

Cherry picking.
posted by ryanrs at 8:10 PM on May 12, 2015 [7 favorites]

Cherrypickin'!

also known as being a butt in my house but YMMV
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:10 PM on May 12, 2015

In my house we called this eating the center out of the brownies.
posted by phunniemee at 8:10 PM on May 12, 2015

Poking the chocolates.
posted by headnsouth at 8:20 PM on May 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

skimming the cream

picking the low-hanging fruit

but probably cherrypicking
posted by GuyZero at 8:24 PM on May 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

In my wife's line of work they call it "creaming".
posted by alms at 8:24 PM on May 12, 2015

". . . a particularly shrewd remark once made by, of all people, Bunny. 'Y'know,' he said, 'Julian is like one of those people that'll pick all his favorite chocolates out of the box and leave the rest.'"

-- The Secret History, Donna Tartt


Alternatively, "skim"? I've also heard "pick the raisins out of the cake." (Or "out of the bun.")
posted by ostro at 8:28 PM on May 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Separate the wheat from the chaff.
posted by Aha moment at 8:32 PM on May 12, 2015

Cherry picking
posted by MsMolly at 8:36 PM on May 12, 2015

Skimming the cream.

In my house, we call it eating the raisins out of the Raisin Bran.
@phunniemee, the brownie edges are the best part!
posted by mochapickle at 8:47 PM on May 12, 2015

Sucking out the marrow
posted by XMLicious at 8:54 PM on May 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

High grading.
posted by miles1972 at 9:01 PM on May 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Nthing cherrypicking, but also, for some cases, such as taking all the frosting off a cake or all the avocado out of a salad, we call it strip mining.
posted by bricoleur at 9:12 PM on May 12, 2015 [3 favorites]

Seconding high grading, which is actually a logging term, but is applied to food, at least here in forestry-heavy BC.
posted by ssg at 9:14 PM on May 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Stop eating all the M&Ms out of the trail mix. Stop sifting through the Chex Mix.

taking all the frosting off of the cake is called fixing America's obsession with overfrosted cakes in my house
posted by deludingmyself at 9:52 PM on May 12, 2015 [4 favorites]

@GuyZero: Low-hanging fruit does not mean what OP is getting at...
posted by Seboshin at 9:56 PM on May 12, 2015 [2 favorites]

Take the bait, spit out the hook
posted by pH Indicating Socks at 10:01 PM on May 12, 2015

Eat the meat, spit out the bones.
posted by Happydaz at 10:39 PM on May 12, 2015

Always eat grapes downwards—that is, always eat the best grape first. In this way there will be none better left on the bunch, and each grape will seem good down to the last. If you eat the other way, you will not have a good grape in the lot. Besides, you will be tempting Providence to kill you before you come to the best.

In New Zealand for a long time I had to do the washing-up after each meal. I used to do the knives first, for it might please God to take me before I came to the forks, and then what a sell it would have been to have done the forks rather than the knives.

(From the Notebooks of Samuel Butler)
posted by verstegan at 12:12 AM on May 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

Having your cake and eating it too?
posted by jojobobo at 12:40 AM on May 13, 2015

Separating the wheat from the chaff, the gold from the dross
posted by XMLicious at 12:50 AM on May 13, 2015

Eating the green M&Ms. Taking the corner piece. Eating the middle out of the daddy longlegs.

(I usually hear "cherrypicking" in the context of arguments, i.e. choosing only examples that support your side when there are at least as many examples that do not. It means the same thing, but I don't use it when talking about literally taking the cherries out of the fruit cocktail.)
posted by Metroid Baby at 3:20 AM on May 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Life is a buffet."
posted by St. Peepsburg at 4:51 AM on May 13, 2015

"Ratfucking" -- in US military slang, the practice of rifling through someone's rations or kit and taking out all the best bits for yourself.
posted by laumry at 5:14 AM on May 13, 2015 [3 favorites]

Donating the muffin stumps to a homeless shelter?
posted by I_Zimbra at 8:11 AM on May 13, 2015

My best friend and I call this (in a chunky ice cream context) "mining for ore."
posted by the_blizz at 8:59 AM on May 13, 2015

In AA, they say, "Take what you need and leave the rest". If there was a better metaphor, they'd likely use it.
posted by Obscure Reference at 9:39 AM on May 13, 2015

Not sure this is similar enough, but Mom used to say "Don't take your half out of the middle."
posted by Flexagon at 10:49 AM on May 13, 2015 [1 favorite]

I always loved that in Beat Street they call that being a 'biter'. Like you take a bite and leave the rest.

...but that's a deep cut.
posted by lumpenprole at 12:05 PM on May 13, 2015

"Pointing the cheese", because the best part of a wedge of cheese is closest to the center of the wheel.
posted by domo at 1:28 PM on May 13, 2015

It's extremely rude, since you're supposed to slice the cheese lengthwise so everyone gets an even distribution.
posted by domo at 1:34 PM on May 13, 2015

It's extremely rude, since you're supposed to slice the cheese lengthwise so everyone gets an even distribution.

I'm having a very hard time visualizing how this is supposed to work.
posted by bluejayway at 4:47 PM on May 14, 2015

It's like cutting a slice of cake in two. You cut from the rind to the center.
posted by domo at 7:05 AM on May 16, 2015