Complex Numbers

The Once and Future Cheese

It's snowing again here. Not too heavily, and it's not really sticking on the roads, but every time people in Virginia see so much as one flake of snow, it's like some alien invasion, as if they've never seen it before. And it snows here. Every. Winter. Well, not so much last winter, but every other winter. And I had to leave the house, so I got to experience the chaos firsthand.

Anyway, no need to leave the house again until tomorrow evening, so I get to share with you this article from Eater about...

    When Cheese Can Tell the Future  
The Kitchen Witch brings the ancient art of tyromancy — divination through cheese — to the modern day

Headline notwithstanding, no, cheese cannot tell the future. Unless it's moldy when it's not supposed to be, in which case it predicts its own journey to the trash can or compost pile.

Still, people think it can, and that's fascinating to me.

Throughout history, people have sought answers about the unknown.

Yes. That's why there is science. Do you know how milk becomes cheese? Well, neither do I, beyond the absolute basics, but science does.

But predicting fates and futures hasn’t always been synonymous with tarot cards and oracles; sometimes, it comes down to what you eat or drink.

With me, it's like, "I see a night on the toilet in your future."

Though each society has its own versions of food divination, shape interpretation is the common ingredient in countless fortunes told. In the 1700s, “pulling the kale” was a popular way to predict the qualities of one’s future mate based upon the traits of the pulled-up plant.

And people think kale sprung suddenly onto the scene in the noughties.

And then there’s tyromancy, or cheese divination.

Oddly enough, the word "tyro" means novice or amateur, but that's from a different root word.

And now, Jennifer Billock, the Chicago-based creator of the Kitchen Witch newsletter, is taking this ancient yet new-to-most form of fortune telling into the 21st century with group readings. “It seemed like a fun way to tell fortunes that also ended up being delicious,” she says.

As long as I get to eat the cheese afterward, I'll pretend to believe in divination.

After the introduction is an interview between the publication and Billock. I'm not going to quote from that, but it goes into the mechanics of how it's done (short version: she reads the "variations," like mold stripes or ridges at the break of a hard cheese).

As with astrology, I'm amazed at the amount of work and thought people put into things like this. Sure, I don't accept that dairy products (or stars) can actually tell one's future, but I've come to the understanding that life is a little more fun with these absurdities than it would be without them.

Still, the only future I can predict when I have a hunk of cheese is that it will soon be in my belly.