Tyromancy
If you’ve ever had a really good charcuterie board, a delicious grilled cheese, or the perfect sprinkling of parmesan cheese over fresh pasta you probably already agree that cheese is magic. But did you know it is also used to tell the future? Like Tasseography involves the reading of tea leaves for unraveling the future, Tyromancy uses cheese.
Despite its commonality, or maybe because of it, food has a long history of being involved in magic. From tea leaves to garlic, our pantries hold more wonders than we often give them credit for. In particular, tyromancy, fortune telling through cheese has existed since ancient times. You can even tell from the name! Tupi means cheese in Greek and the words ending, μαντεία, means divination.
Similar to tasseography, there are a few different approaches to tyromancy. Some call for the pattern and distribution of mold, holes, or imperfections in cheese when cut into. Others say the future-telling happens at a much earlier stage in the cheesemaking process and you're supposed to examine the shapes made as the milk is curdled. Others say you have to wait longer, waiting until the cheese is aged and crumbly and you examine the patterns formed by the breaking of the cheese into pieces. Some don't even involve altering or examining the cheese at all! To divine your future husband, you would carve names into different hunks of cheese and see which animal eats it first when left outside (although that requires waiting).
Although there are references to tyromancy in Sumeria and Ancient Greek, its recorded popularity really took off in the middle ages, which makes sense. Cheese was a common enough household product and, if you were worried about witch hunters, you could just have the evidence as a snack.
For those who prefer their cheese warmed, there is also a practice of heating up cheese with other ingredients until it reaches a melty, malleable consistency. From there you ask your question as you ladle a portion of the cheese onto a piece of bread. The shape it makes on the bread as it lands and spreads can then be examined.
Although there are guides and spellbooks that help you examine and determine the meaning of cheese variations, this practice is often compared to tasseography and it is common to just use a similar guide for this more popular food-based divination.
The kinds of cheese also vary - most use a variation of “farmers cheese”, which is just unprocessed curds that have been salted. Sometimes hard cheese was also used. Other types of cheeses, like brie, were seen as more of a luxury but it is common now for practitioners to use cheese with noted variations, like Swiss Cheese and Blue Cheese.
Thanks to Mary S for this blogstonishing suggestion.
The blog image header depicts a cheese tasting at the Fort Ross State Historic Park Harvest Festival, 2015. Taken by Sarah Stierch. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.