"had a discriminating palette" and "bare-bone want"?

[iemmahu]

I've read an article, and there are two expressions I don't quite understand.
1.
"Years later, whenever Dad recalled that tradition, his eyes sparkled reliving the memory. My mother not so much. She always said she suspected the chocolates had been pre-sucked; they tasted cheap and old. You can’t blame the woman. Even as a child, she had a discriminating palette."

Could it be "palate" instead of "palette"?

2. "But the paper sacks did not have a context for our children. We had apples and oranges at home. Our children had never known fruit to be a scarcity, just as they had never known bare-bone want, or bread-and-butter sandwiches."

What does "bare-bone want" mean?

Can anyone please help me out?
Many many thanks.

The whole article can be found at:
When the gift meets the need - Family Matters - The Buffalo News

 

[JMurray]

1.
"Years later, whenever Dad recalled that tradition, his eyes sparkled reliving the memory. My mother not so much. She always said she suspected the chocolates had been pre-sucked; they tasted cheap and old. You can’t blame the woman. Even as a child, she had a discriminating palette."

Could it be "palate" instead of "palette"?

2. "But the paper sacks did not have a context for our children. We had apples and oranges at home. Our children had never known fruit to be a scarcity, just as they had never known bare-bone want, or bread-and-butter sandwiches."

What does "bare-bone want" mean?

1) this is a spelling error.
palette = (a) a board on which an artist mixes colours, or (b) a range of colours.
palate = in this context, a person's sense/appreciation of taste and flavour.
Clearly "palate" was intended.

2) to be "down to the bare bones" means to have almost nothing left. I haven't come across this specific phrase before but I'm sure "bare-bone want" means acute poverty or need.

not a teacher

 

[iemmahu]

1.
"Years later, whenever Dad recalled that tradition, his eyes sparkled reliving the memory. My mother not so much. She always said she suspected the chocolates had been pre-sucked; they tasted cheap and old. You can’t blame the woman. Even as a child, she had a discriminating palette."

Could it be "palate" instead of "palette"?

2. "But the paper sacks did not have a context for our children. We had apples and oranges at home. Our children had never known fruit to be a scarcity, just as they had never known bare-bone want, or bread-and-butter sandwiches."

What does "bare-bone want" mean?

1) this is a spelling error.
palette = (a) a board on which an artist mixes colours, or (b) a range of colours.
palate = in this context, a person's sense/appreciation of taste and flavour.
Clearly "palate" was intended.

2) to be "down to the bare bones" means to have almost nothing left. I haven't come across this specific phrase before but I'm sure "bare-bone want" means acute poverty or need.

not a teacher

One more question (might be a little bit silly): Does "bread-and-butter sandwiches"
have any figurative meanings in this context? Or just a kind of sandwich?
Many thanks.

 

[emsr2d2]

A sandwich normally consists of bread, butter and at least one other ingredient or filling. If you are too poor to afford another ingredient, you would have to eat just the bread and butter, which is referred to as a "bread and butter sandwich" here to make a point.

 

[BobK]

:up: Of course, bread and butter sanwiches are more appetising than dry bread (here's one for the vocabulary books!)

b

 

[emsr2d2]

My grandfather (and my father) used to refer to them just as "butter sandwiches", I think. That makes sense because if you don't have two pieces of bread, then you don't have a sandwich in the first place. If you have two slices of bread stuck together with butter, then technically it's a butter sandwich. I have a feeling that I've even heard the phrase "bread sandwich" used when someone is too poor to even have butter!

I should point out that all of the above makes sense in BrE. It may not be the case in AmE. I seem to recall a thread a little while ago where we established that a sandwich in America sometimes only requires one piece of bread and some other stuff on top of it, but in the UK, it's not a sandwich if it doesn't have a top slice of bread and a bottom slice of bread.

 

[Barb_D]

We do have the concept of an "open-face(d) sandwich" but that's usually for hot things - a slice of break with a piece of ham on it without another piece of bread is not a sandwich.

 

[SoothingDave]

I have a feeling that I've even heard the phrase "bread sandwich" used when someone is too poor to even have butter! ​

It can be termed a "wish sandwich," when you have 2 pieces of bread and you wish you had something to go between them.