" faire ses choux gras de quelque chose "
To take advantage of something
Today in a French Newspaper , the following headline was published.
L'Allemagne a fait ses choux gras de la crise grecque .
Germany has capitalized on Greek crisis.
The details of how Germany had taken advantage of the financial crisis of Greece need not concern us . What we are interested in , is the use of the above mentioned expression.
The origin of this expression as gleaned from authoritative sources is as what follows.In olden days, it was the rich who could afford meat and the poor had their " choux" ( cabbage which was cheap and abundant in Europe ) laced with lard ( a fat ) . With lard , the vegetable becomes more palatable . This expression , from 17 th century onwards was being used in a figurative sense to mean " taking advantage of a situation " " Faire ses choux gras " literally means " rendering his cabbage fat " the later part of the expression " de quelque chose " is very important to appreciate the full meaning of this expression . There is a situation . One takes advantage of it . Then we say , " Elle en fait ses choux gras " - She capitalises on it . En = de quelque chose. Normally , the sens is pejorative.
Now go through the following examples.
Les marchands font ses choux gras de la sécheresse en augmentant le prix des oignons .
The merchants take advantage of the drought situation by increasing the price of onions.
Le parti Congress a fait ses choux gras des charges contre des ministres de BJP .
The congress party made political capital out of the charges against some ministers of BJP .
Hope you followed.
À bientôt !
T. K. Jayaraman
11/08/2015
Bangalore
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