I don’t think it’s a proverb at all. (Edit: or is it?) (Edit: ok, maybe it is. I’ve never heard of it.)

It means “One should eat less cheese than bread” but I suppose you figured that part out already.

Just a guess: cheese is very tasty (and expensive), but bread isn’t that much.
Anyway, one never eats cheese without bread, and cheese being more fat (or maybe more expensive), even if it is better than bread, one should eat less cheese than bread, in order to stay healthy (or wealthy)…

What actually feeds you in bread+cheese is the inexpensive bread.

I have heard this used in relation to people that spend their life chasing luxury items or cool exciting technology (I’m a programmer), keeping up with the Jones’s as it were. A reference to a more Buddhist way of life where one should pay more attention to the simple things in life and less attention to luxuries. No amount of luxuries will fill a hole in your heart. The simplest things in life are the ones which will bring true happiness.

I can’t speak to the context in which it was used, proverbially speaking it would have been related to what you were discussing, or some manner that she perceived of you.

I would wager that you did or said something where she perceived you were chasing costly details (luxuries) that she considered less important in the grand scheme of things – the cheese, where you should have been concentrating on the ‘low hanging fruit’, those things which are quickly, cheaply and easily fixed and give the greatest return on your investment – the bread.

Bonjour à tous, finalement, lors d’une réunion, j’ai demandé à la femme de m’expliquer sa phrase. Elle est Portugaise, et au Portugal, elle m’explique qu’ils croient que le fromage est mauvais pour la mémoire. Elle avait oublié de faire quelque chose, donc maintenant, c’est clair pour moi aussi 🙂

Cette expression (valable aussi pour la charcuterie, et le saucisson en particulier) est liée au temps ou le pain constituait quatre-vingt pour cent de la nourriture chez les pauvres, et beaucoup moins chez les bourgeois.

A table, il était de bon ton d’expliquer aux enfants que le fromage ou la charcuterie se mangeaient avec du pain, et que la proportion de ce dernier devait être la plus importante ; qu’il était vulgaire de manger le fromage ou la charcuterie sans pain, que cela faisait parvenu (manger les mets les plus onéreux pour afficher sa richesse, alors que l’équilibre des deux aliments permet de valoriser les saveurs).

C’est devenu un conseil diététique qui conseille de diminuer la part de protéine d’origine animale.