While we remain here, picking our teeth.

[krisstte]

Here are lines from Author's note at the end of the book. What does "picking our teeth" mean? Is it an idiom?

And so they lived long and happily, but we have nothing?

"Those wishing to learn more about Sicily’s folktales may want to read The Collected Sicilian Folk andFairy Tales of Giuseppe Pitrè, translated and edited by Jack Zipes and Joseph Russo. Many end with a coda, like this one:

And so they lived on, in contentment and peace,
While we remain here, picking our teeth.

L. Scottoline "Loyalty

 

[Tarheel]

You pick your teeth to remove any food particles stuck between them.

 

[emsr2d2]

Without further context, it's hard to say exactly. I suspect, though, that it wants to contrast the boring, trivial daily lives of those who remain here with those other people who are living happily and peacefully.

I'm certainly not familiar with it as any kind of idiom in BrE.

 

[Skrej]

An idiom is a group of words which has a new meaning you (typically) can't deduce from the meaning of the individual words comprising it. That's not the case with 'picking your teeth' - it means exactly that.

It could however be a metaphor - a phrase symbolizing something else. There's no hidden new meaning in 'picking our teeth', but it does symbolize something like boredom or ennui in the example above.

In a different context, it could however symbolize something else.

 

[Rover_KE]

I’ve heard (and said) the more distasteful picking my nose/scratching my bum (AE butt).

 

[emsr2d2]

And "contemplating my navel".

 

[Skrej]

And "contemplating my navel".

The much, much more fun term for that is omphaloskepsis.

I've absolutely loved that term ever since I first learned it as a teenager. Sadly, thirty plus some years later, I've yet to work it naturally into a conversation and it remains relegated to the realm of obscure party (and now internet forum) trivia.