Amanda Miller
Columnist
Lettuce Eat Local

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of puns and the “dad joke” style of humor, especially food-related. When I first started writing this column, I had a great arsenal of good pithy phrases and witty wordings (or at least what I considered good at the time). But that was around 400 headlines ago, and I am fully ready to admit that my quips get stretched pretty thin at times, making even me cringe at the cheesiness.
I have nothing against cheesy — we are dairy farmers, after all. In general, moderation is key to proper enjoyment, but sometimes going overboard is called for.
And yes, I am talking about both metaphorical humor cheese and physical edible cheese. Just by typing a number and “cheese” in the internet search bar, taking the first suggested result leads me to three-cheese manicotti, four-cheese pasta, five-cheese ziti al forno, six-cheese bagel, seven-cheese mac and cheese, eight-cheese pizza: does it ever stop? (You be might be stopped up long before you get through that much cheese, but that’s another topic.) The options do start to slow down after the octave of cheesiness, although it seems Pizza Hut once ran a limited time offer for nine-cheese pizza in Thailand.
Apparently it’s hard to have too much cheese.
This does beg the question, since none of those foods seem inherently humourous to me, why do we call jokes cheesy? A little research shows a disappointing denigration of both meanings of cheese. Using the word “cheesy” to describe non-food items or situations appeared in vocabulary in the mid 1800s, with a negative connotation of shoddiness or inferiority.
I’m a little offended — perhaps I think the definition itself is cheesy — but I suppose I understand its potential origin. Milk that sits out and spoils curdles or turns “cheesy,” clearly not of the highest quality anymore, just like some jokes. Google dictionary’s two definitions of the term are “like cheese in taste, smell, or consistency” (which could be very positive) and “cheap, unpleasant, or blatantly inauthentic” (which is obviously less desirable).
I say we bring back a little more of the long-obsolete meaning of ostentatious or showy, because that’s clearly what those eight-cheese pizzas were about. The Big Cheese. Whether showy or not, I maintain that cheesy humor does not necessarily mean shabby and shoddy; maybe it has a bit of the funk of a well-aged cheese but turns out to be just the thing when you learn to appreciate it.
Something like that.
I do greatly enjoy when both cheese and cheesiness show up together, such as in cheesy puns. My parents-in-law just got Kiah a t-shirt that proclaims “Up to no Gouda” — and there could barely be a cheddar way to describe her mischievous self. Most of us in the Miller family have at least one dairy good cheesy shirt, thanks to manning the cheese booth at the Kansas Mennonite Relief Sale every year. That weekend just happened again, so we pulled out our t-shirts; this year my sister-in-law also brought way too many cheese-pun stickers. You can’t disa-brie that we were all in gouda shape.
You might, understandably, think that I could have done a cheddar job than writing about cheese for my Q-themed article, but I still had to try it just in queso.

Queso-chiladas

These were going to be tres-o queso, but as mentioned, it can be terribly hard to stop once the cheese wheel gets rolling. But I can’t think of a good reason to not have cinco quesos! The enchilada sauce is crucial in the flavoring here, so make sure you get good quality — I used a homecanned tomato-based one, but I’m thinking the green style would also be really tasty. The more authentic way to assemble is to dip each tortilla in the sauce before filling it, but it’s so much messier that I skipped it this time. 

Prep tips: as per usual, another hearty green can sub (like kale or spinach). Try with corn tortillas for a twist; just adjust assembly as necessary to accommodate their smaller size. 

1 small onion

½ pound ground beef

a couple handfuls of chopped swiss chard

2 cups ricotta 

1 cup shredded muenster

salt, pepper, cumin, and smoked paprika to taste

8 whole-wheat tortillas

2 cups red enchilada sauce

1 cup shredded sharp white cheddar

1 cup crumbled queso blanco

Cook onion and hamburger in a large skillet until meat is browned. Stir in chard, and cook until it’s wilted, just a minute or two. Remove from heat, and stir in ricotta, muenster, and seasonings to taste. Scoop around a half-cup of meat mixture into the center of each tortilla, roll up, and place seam-side-down in a 9×13” baking dish. Pour sauce on, trying to leave no portion unsauced. Sprinkle with remaining cheeses, and bake at 350° until the sauce is all bubbly and the cheese is all melty. Serve with rotel queso sauce and more shredded cheeses (of course), along with green onions, olives, beans, salsa ranch, etc.