{"id":8515,"date":"2014-05-06T08:00:17","date_gmt":"2014-05-06T12:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/?p=8515"},"modified":"2014-05-06T14:59:40","modified_gmt":"2014-05-06T18:59:40","slug":"talking-cheese-the-green-cheese-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/developer83.wordpress-developer.us\/culturecheesemag\/talking-cheese-the-green-cheese-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Talking Cheese: The Green Cheese Moon"},"content":{"rendered":"

In <\/i>this blog series<\/i><\/a>, intern Julia explores the everyday language surrounding cheese, from etymology to idioms to associations. Learn why we \u201csay cheese\u201d when we take a photo, why once upon a time we believed that the moon was made of green cheese, or even the history of the word cheese itself. Last week, <\/i>we investigated why mice are always linked with cheese<\/i><\/a>. Plus, be sure to answer the prompt at the end of the post each week for a chance to win a copy of <\/i>culture<\/i><\/b>\u2019s ultimate cheese pairing guide: <\/i>Cheese+. <\/i><\/b>Amy is the winner from last week<\/i>. Congrats and good luck to everyone this week!<\/i><\/p>\n

\n

I still remember many childhood nights sitting down with my family to watch my father\u2019s favorite movie, the 1990 Wallace and Gromit film A Grand Day Out. <\/i>In it, Wallace and his loyal dog Gromit want a cheese-and-cracker snack, but they have eaten all the cheese and the stores are closed. Together they build a rocket to go to the moon because, as Wallace reads, \u201ceveryone knows the moon is made of cheese.\u201d At the time, I took the plot in stride, accepting the idea that the moon is made of delicious curds without any concerns – this was a cartoon, after all, and I was young enough that nothing was too absurd.<\/p>\n

\"wallace<\/a>

photo from Thoughts of a Steel Monster<\/a> blog<\/p><\/div>\n

Then a few years ago, I read The Distance of the Moon<\/em>, a short story in Italo Calvino\u2019s collection Cosmicomics<\/em>. In this beautifully written tale, people go to the moon to collect \u201cmoon milk,\u201d which is a soft, cream cheese-like substance enthusiastically consumed by those in the story. Clearly, the idea of the moon being made of cheese has traversed time and location – Calvino wrote Cosmicomics<\/em> in Italy in 1968. And I\u2019m sure that internationally there exist countless pop culture references to cheese on the moon that I simply have not come across.<\/p>\n

Of course, we know that the moon is not made of cheese at all, despite the prevalence of the idea. Personally, I found it hard to believe that this myth was, in fact, a myth at all…what could possibly have inspired people to think the moon consisted of cheese (and, more importantly, what type of cheese is it)?<\/p>\n

The curds, it turns out, are green – not in terms of color, but in the implications of naivety or youth. The best known record goes back to The Proverbs of John Heywood<\/em>, a collection of adages (made by the well-known 16th century English writer Heywood) published in 1546:<\/p>\n

Ye fetch circumquaques to make me beleeve,
\nOr thinke, that the moone is made of a greene cheese<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to an article on the Mental Floss<\/em> website, the idea of moon-as-cheese actually comes from before the 16th century. In a medieval Servian folk tale, a hungry wolf is tricked by a fox into believing a reflection of the moon on a still pond is in fact a yummy wheel of cheese. Eager to get a meal, the wolf drinks the whole pond and bursts. Similar tales of one character tricking another appear across cultures, indicating that the idea of the moon being made of green cheese means, simply, that someone is very gullible. The idea was probably best outlined by John Wilkins, an English philosopher, in 1638: \u201cYou may\u2026 soon persuade some country peasants that the moon is made of greene cheese, (as we say).\u201d<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s doubtful that anyone ever actually believed it, at least not academically,\u201d explains the Mental Floss<\/em> article.<\/p>\n

Whether due to Heywood\u2019s popularity or humanity\u2019s love of cheese we will never know, but the phrase has spread throughout the globe. Today the trope is still going strong – from Wallace and Gromit to Tom and Jerry to an old McDonald\u2019s commercial to the \u201chalf-baked ideas cookies\u201d in The Phantom Tollbooth<\/em>, pop culture has turned the moon into cheese again and again. As an April Fool\u2019s joke several years ago, NASA announced that the moon did in fact have an expiration date, thanks to the cheese making up the satellite – the perfect trick for a day devoted to testing people\u2019s gullibility.<\/p>\n

Technically, the cheese on the moon is \u201cgreen,\u201d or young. But if the moon was made of a specific cheese, what type would it be? Would it be more than one type<\/strong>? Answer in the comments section by May 13, 2014 at 12:00 midnight EDT for a chance to win a copy of our latest special issue, Cheese+<\/strong>. Don\u2019t forget to stop by next week, when we\u2019ll find out where all the \u201cbig cheeses\u201d came from<\/a>!<\/p>\n

Featured photo by davespilbrow<\/a> via Compfight<\/a> cc<\/a><\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It turns out people have been saying the moon is made of cheese for quite a long time–but does anyone believe it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":8519,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[319],"coauthors":[408],"class_list":["post-8515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-community-culture"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTalking Cheese: The Green Cheese Moon - culture: the word on cheese<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"People have been saying the moon is made of green cheese for quite a long time - but does anyone believe it?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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