Pentagon as a Second Language - Food Edition

I do still intend to write about the Mendelssohn bicentennial event (which was also part of the "Music and the Brain" series), but I want to have an early night, so it will have to wait. In the meantime, here's a linguistic tidbit from my work world.

At a meeting today my (government) boss said, "X said we're not going to peanut butter it." Meaning that the money would not be spread evenly over a bunch of programs.

I have no idea why peanut butter is assumed to spread more evenly than anything else. However, I was amused when a few minutes later (still on the same subject), he said, "X doesn't want to salami slice it."

I had never quite realized the equivalence of peanut butter and salami before.