Cut the mustard

Perform satisfactorily, as in We need a better catcher; this one just doesn't cut the mustard. The origin of this expression is disputed. Some believe it alludes to mustard in the sense of the best or main attraction (owing to its spicing up food), whereas others believe it is a corruption of pass muster. Still others hold that it concerns the preparation of mustard, which involves adding vinegar to mustard seed to "cut" (reduce) its bitterness. The expression is often in negative form, as in the example. [Slang; c. 1900]

In the twentieth century, Americans were able to cut the mustard, that is, "to do what is needed." The first evidence comes from O. Henry in 1904: "So I looked around and found a proposition that exactly cut the mustard."

It is one of our most puzzling expressions. Does it have to do with cultivating or harvesting the mustard plant? Does it have to do with the slang expressions be the proper mustard, that is, "be the real thing," or be all to the mustard, "be very good"? Or might it mean "exceed the standard," where cut means "surpass" or "excel," and mustard is really the muster, or "examination," as in the old expression pass muster? All these explanations have been seriously advanced by those who cut the mustard in lexicography, but they are only guesses.

Here are examples of other mustard expressions of the time. From Andy Adams, The Log of a Cowboy (1903): "For fear they were not the proper mustard, he had that dog man sue him in court for the balance, so as to make him prove the pedigree." And from H. McHugh, You Can Search Me (1905): "Petroskinski is a discovery of mine, and he's all to the mustard."