養活你的那一份
把畫面直接搬到工作上：哪一份工作是每天端上桌的那盤麵包。
adjective · B2
Bread-and-butter work is the plain, steady, not very exciting work that brings in most of the money you live on.
餬口的；主要收入來源的
核心畫面
Think of the plate you eat from every single day: bread, with butter on it. Nobody photographs it. Nobody talks about it afterwards. But take it away and the day stops working. That is the whole word — the plain thing underneath, the one that is not interesting and cannot be skipped.
可以想成每天都會端上桌的那一盤：麵包，抹上奶油。沒有人會拍它，吃完也不會特別提起。可是把它拿走，一天就撐不下去了。這…更多收起
可以想成每天都會端上桌的那一盤：麵包，抹上奶油。沒有人會拍它，吃完也不會特別提起。可是把它拿走，一天就撐不下去了。這個字的意思都可以從這個畫面看出來——底下那個不起眼、卻少不了的東西。From the word’s history
Bread and butter were the archetypal basic foods in the places where English developed, which is why English has a whole row of expressions built on them: daily bread, put bread on the table, earn one's bread, bread and water. The adjective grows out of that: the basic daily thing.
在英語發展的地方，麵包和奶油一向是最基本的日常食物，所以英文有一整排靠它們造出來的說法：daily bread、put bread on the table、earn one's bread、bread and water。形容詞的用法就是從這裡長出來的——最基本、天天都要有的那樣東西。
English Wiktionary, entry 'bread-and-butter', etymology note (packet source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1273925685)
Two branches
最基本、最要緊的那些事
同一個畫面換個對象：不是分工作，而是分話題。房租、票價、學校，就是議題裡的那盤麵包。
adjective · B2
Bread-and-butter questions or issues are the basic everyday ones that matter most to ordinary people, such as jobs, housing, prices and schools.
最基本、最切身的（議題）