meat and drink to one

1. A source of great satisfaction or delight, as in Good music is meat and drink to her. This metaphoric expression, transferring basic sustenance to satisfaction, appeared as early as 1533, in John Frith's A Boke Answering unto Mr. Mores Letter: “It is meat and drink to this child to play.”

Example Sentences

"A word of praise is meat and drink to one who sings—or dances," he added remembering the hare.

From Project Gutenberg

It was such a daydawn as I have sometimes seen in the Carpathians; cool and clear, but with that sweet dewy wetness in the lower air which washes the over-night cobwebs from the brain, and is both meat and drink to one who breathes it.

From Project Gutenberg

Gaffney accepted the commission with alacrity; his brother, he said, was just then out of a job, having lost a clerkship through the sudden bankruptcy of his employers; such a bit of business as that which Mr. Appleyard had entrusted to him was so much meat and drink to one of his tastes—in more ways than one.

From Project Gutenberg