Sounds Swiss to me

Posted by Bob on October 13, 2003

In Reply to: Sounds Swiss to me posted by Word Camel on October 13, 2003

: : : : When tension mounts, and the outcome of an activity may not be what has been desired, Americans say "the cheese is getting binding". While the notion of the digestive effects of eating too much cheese is curious, it would be interesting to find how this particular expression got started...........

: : : When you grate cheese and melt it in, you want it evenly distributed through the mix - with Mozzarella in particular, even if you put it in grated or in small chucks, if you are careless it can all come together in a lump - bound up. I think that the expression is about that phenomenon.

: : I've never heard that expression in my part of the U.S. (West Virginia & Kentucky.) Is it like "the plot thickens"?

:
: I have never heard it over here either. What's your source? It makes me think of all the various Swiss methods for keeping the fondu from hardening into a ball in your stomach. (I've had it happen to me and it's not nice!)

30 years ago I lived in Atlanta, and I can testify that in the Deep South, "well, that makes the cheese more binding" is roughly equivalent to "the plot thickens...." Never heard it north of Georgia.