What it means
So delicious it makes you smack your lips in anticipation and satisfaction, the involuntary sound of pure enjoyment. A lip-smacking feast, a lip-smacking sauce: the word puts the relish right there on your mouth before the first bite has even landed.
Usage examples
"The barbecue stand does a lip-smacking pulled pork that has people queueing right round the block by noon."
"The new pizza of the corner restaurant of the high street of Highbury in north London is absolutely lip-smacking, the tomato sauce is made from the Sicilian variety of the supplier of the chef, the mozzarella is buffalo from the Campanian farm of the family of the owner, and the basil arrives daily from the herb garden of the back yard of the kitchen."
"The Christmas dinner of the family of my colleague at the boutique hotel near the Cotswolds was a lip-smacking affair from start to finish, the goose was roasted with chestnuts of the local forest, the gravy was reduced from the bone stock of the morning, and the plum pudding was set alight at the table with brandy of the same vintage as my grandfather."
Where it comes from
Lip-smacking entered English literature as a descriptive phrase for the involuntary sound of the satisfied eater in the late eighteen-hundreds, used by both Charles Dickens in his American journalism and by Mark Twain in the Mississippi novels of the eighteen-seventies. The phrase rests on the literal physiological observation that the closure of the lips after a delicious bite of food produces a soft popping sound, often involuntary in the very hungry diner. The advertising industry of the early twentieth century adopted lip-smacking as a marketing adjective for confectionery and condiments, with Heinz brands of the nineteen-twenties using the term in print campaigns on both sides of the Atlantic, and the phrase has remained current in food journalism ever since.
Other ways to say it
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