Hello everybody:

i am trying read, translate the tale "Журавль и цапля". In the following sentence after the Heron has rejected the crane:

"Журавль, как не солоно похлебал, ушел домой."

What does: "как не солоно похлебал" mean? I tried to look for the meaning: Is the literal meaning: "like no salt in his soup?". I presume it is an an idiom which does not translate literally. I say soup because the closest word i could find for похлебал was похлебка although похлебал looks more like a past form of a verb.

Thank you


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