"Yapan yemez!'

"Yapan yemez!"  So spoke Marash Boy's mother at the end of the day, sitting down to join us all for a supper she had laboriously prepared.  Born in Marash, she said it often, often enough so that Marash Girl wondered what it meant.  Not the words.  Marash Girl understood what the words meant.  The literal translation: "The maker doesn't eat (it)."  Or the meaning:  "The cook doesn't eat (what she cooks)."  As recently as last night, as Marash Girl prepared a turkey vegetable soup for supper, she heard those words echoing in her mind and wondered.  "Yapan yemez."  Does it mean that the cook has taste tested the food so often to assure its perfection that s/he has no appetite? (Sorry, Marash Girl should be writing "she", not "s/he", as in most Armenian families, only the "she" prepared the meals; Marash Girl will correct that error in the future.)  Does it mean that she knows what went into the meal and would never eat it, no matter what?  Does it mean that she was so hungry as she prepared the meal that she ate whatever came to hand as she prepared the meal?  Or that she couldn't wait for the family to gather so she ate her portion while she waited? Or that there wasn't enough food for everyone, so she herself went hungry?  Or that she knew she would be hustling from the kitchen serving and would have no time to sit and eat with the family?  Or that she would be bored sitting at the table and eating with that particular group of family members/guests?  Or that the "maid" was not allowed to sit and eat with the guests?  Or that she simply didn't like what she was serving and had eaten leftovers in the kitchen from the day before? Or that she was so exhausted at the end of the day, that she had no appetite.