To stew in your own juice means to think about or suffer the consequences of your actions without anyone giving your any help. 1Definition of stew (in your own juice) from the Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press). The phrase is said to have been popularized by Otto Von Bismarck, a canceller of the German Empire during the nineteenth century.
Bismarck is said to have used the phrase during the French-Prussian war (Franco-Prussian War/Franco-German War), a conflict he may have deliberately provoked. During this war, he told his armies to “fight until the French stewed in their own juices.”
The allusion itself comes from the cooking of meats, where the juices dripping from roasting meat, such as ox, is used to drip over the roast, adding more flavor.
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