green cheese
a. New or fresh cheese (see green a. and cheese n.1 2 a). b. An inferior kind of cheese prepared from skim milk or whey. c. Cheese coloured green (usually only in parts, with a pattern) with sage; also called sage cheese.
The saying to believe that the moon is made of green cheese (for which see cheese n.1 2 a) might belong to any of these senses; perh. sense c is the most likely, the reference being to the variegated surface of the moon.
| 1362 Langl. P. Pl. A. vii. 268, ‘I haue no peny’, quod Pers, ‘poletes to bugge, Nouther gees ne grys, bote twey grene cheeses’. c 1430 Two Cookery-bks., 48 Take ȝolkys of Eyroun..& grene chese putte ther-to. 1542 Boorde Dyetary xiii. (1870) 266 There is .iiii. sortes of chese, whiche is to say, grene chese, softe chese, harde chese, and spermyse. Grene chese is not called grene by the reason of colour, but for the newnes of it. 1546 Gardiner Decl. Art. Joye (Quarto ed.) 73 All is noth worth a greane chease. 1599 H. Buttes Dyets drie Dinner N vij, Greene or new cheese, newly made, nourisheth..more then salt and olde. 1605 Tryall Chev. iii. i. in Bullen O. Pl. III. 305 How did he looke? Faith, scurvily, my lord, like a greene cheese. a 1658 Cleveland May Day v, Fields with Curds and Cream like green-cheese lie. 1727 Boyer Dict. Royal II, Green Cheese (with Herbs in it), fromage persillé. 1839 Mag. Dom. Econ. IV. 241 In Gloucestershire there is another species of cheese, generally known by the name of ‘green cheese’, or ‘sage cheese’. c 1865 Circ. Sci. I. 355/2 In its abundance of fat, cream-cheese is the richest: while green cheese, prepared from whey..is the poorest of all. |