Where did the phrase cut the cheese originate and why was its meaning associated with a bodily function?

Answer 1

The most obvious factual meaning for "cut the cheese" is simply the slicing or dicing of cheeses. However, from there, the meaning becomes, well, rather 'cheesy'.

First, many cheeses have an odoriferous quality, meaning-- they stink to high heaven! For examples, Blue Cheese smells pretty strong.

Second, any milk or milk products are considered gas-producing foods. Milk and other dairy products contain a sugar called lactose. Lactose needs an enzyme lactase to be digested. If you lack enough of that enzyme, it can be difficult for your digestive tract to process cheese, ice cream, milk, which all contain lactose. If not properly digested, lactose can cause excessive intestinal gas. Some foods as they digest get an even stronger odor because bacteria in the intestines produces methane as a by-product of the organism's activities. If gas came as a result of eating an already smelly food, digestion turned it into the granddaddy of all things 'odoriferous'!

Third, our bodies must expel gas; it can cause severe pain if we don't. Passing gas, called Flatulence, occurs in ALL people, of ALL ages, in both women and men. However, more women also suffer gallbladder disease by middle age and without bile to digest fat (which is also found in dairy products along with the lactose sugar), ANYone with a bad gallbladder can have terrible trouble with extremely painful gas. As well, the elderly often have digestive problems and higher incidence of flatulence.

Fourth, people have always made fun of bodily functions. But they lived in a polite society, so tended to find "polite ways" to describe the noisy embarrassments our bodies make. Women in the 1800s, even if they knew the medical term flatulence, would have swooned, fainted, or preferred to die before they'd ever use such a word in public or in mixed company to describe a very private body nuisance!

Ironically, even before laypersons knew medical and scientific terms like lactose, they recognized that when Great-Auntie or Grandpa ate their favorite cheeses or ice cream, they could turn the air around them vile green with just one "passing of gas". But of all the dairy products, the smelliest were those horridly odoriferous types of cheese!

So, to "cut the cheese" was used as a polite, humorous way to comment on someone else's Flatulence!

Of course, if they "cut the cheese" while "cutting the rug" (meaning they were thoroughly enjoying dancing), a flatulent person could surely ruin any party and chase away party-goers who then went home to cut the rug and cut the cheese in the privacy of their own homes!

And that my dear is the story of "cutting the cheese".