There are some strange ways in which people predict the future, but this one takes the cake…or cheese, rather.
Jen Billock is a Chicago-based travel writer and self-described “Cheese Witch” who reads fortunes in dairy—a practice known as tyromancy, which dates back to the second century and was used in medieval England to determine criminal guilt and predict harvest seasons. Billock came to it the way many people stumbled into new hobbies during the pandemic: out of boredom and a very specific Google search.
“During Covid, I Googled ‘weird ways to tell fortunes with food,’ and I found cheese, and it was the start of this little love affair,” she told the New York Post. Billock had already spent years studying tarot, so adapting that framework to fromage wasn’t as big a leap as it sounds. “I figured out how to adapt what I was already doing divination-wise into cheese,” she said.
This Fortune Teller Uses Cheese Instead of Crystal Balls. Here’s How It Works.
A reading involves four pieces of cheese, selected by the client. The first three cover the past, present, and future, structured like a three-card tarot spread. The fourth addresses a specific question. Billock says the client’s involvement in choosing the cheese matters. The connection between the selector and the selected is part of the process. “The cheese is just a vehicle,” she explained. “It acts as the connection between the person that I’m reading and me.”
Once she’s focused on the cheese, the messages quickly arrive. “I will focus solely on the cheese, and then things start coming in as ‘you need to say this, you need to say this, you need to say this,’” she said. “Whatever I’m hearing in my head is the message. It’s always loud, and it always knows what it’s doing.”
The type of cheese, she notes, affects the quality of the signal. Blue cheese gets noisy and distracting. A plain cheddar or a Kraft single runs cleaner. “The message is clearer,” she said. And before anyone assumes this is a luxury service for people who shop at Whole Foods, Billock is quick to point out that government cheese works just as well as cave-aged Gruyere.
She also reads tarot, rune stones, wedge salads, croissants, beer, wine, and curry. “If you have to have all your food blended and fed to you through a feeding tube, I can read the blend,” she said, which is either the most inclusive or the most unhinged thing anyone has ever offered as a professional service.
Billock is currently writing a book on tyromancy and offers readings both in person and online. As for her own cheese, she prefers to stay out of it. “I just want to continue to eat it happily and not worry about what it has to say to me.” Fair enough.
The post The ‘Cheese Witch’ Who Uses Dairy to Read Your Future appeared first on VICE.
