{"id":4383,"date":"2025-05-08T03:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T03:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/moon-as-cheese-the-myth-and-science\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T03:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T03:02:09","slug":"moon-as-cheese-the-myth-and-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/moon-as-cheese-the-myth-and-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Moon as Cheese: The Myth and Science"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Moon made of cheese<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The moon is made of cheese. It\u2019s a trope that shows up in children\u2019s books, television and other popular media. Wallace and Gromit went up to the moon for cheese in the 1989 film A Grand Day Out<\/em><\/a> <\/a>. In 2023, one of the villains of the television show Superkitties<\/em><\/a> tried to hijack a rocket ship to find cheese on the moon. There was even a DC comic book character named Chester Cheese<\/a> in the 1980s who was a superhero, Little Cheese, who got his powers by eating \u201cLunar Longhorn,\u201d a cheese found on the moon.<\/p>\n

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When the Moon Hits Your Eye<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In March 2025, bestselling and award-winning science fiction author John Scalzi <\/a>published When the Moon Meets Your Eye<\/em> that actually imagines what would happen if the moon suddenly became cheese.<\/p>\n

Then there is food inspired by the trope: A snack food called Moon Cheese<\/a> that prides itself as being full of protein and recent cheesemaker Ron Henningfeld of Hill Valley Dairy<\/a> made a cheese named Luna in 2020 with the description starting, \u201cIf the moon is made of cheese, we think it would taste like Luna.\u201d It\u2019s cave-aged with a natural rind and described as an alpine\/gouda hybrid.<\/p>\n

So where does this trope come from and why has it retained such cultural currency?\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Origins of the Myth<\/h2>\n

The origin of the idea that the moon is cheese is older than you\u2019d think. The earliest written record is from the English writer John Heywood, \u201cThe moone is made of a greene cheese\u201d is mentioned in his 1546 Proverbs. Part ii. Chap. vii<\/a>. Scholars have interpreted that the word green does not refer to green moldy cheese, but rather a new cheese. (Heywood is better known for proverbs like \u201cHaste maketh waste\u201d and \u201cWhen the iron is hot, strike.\u201d)<\/p>\n

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The Wolf and the Fox in the Well<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A common answer across the internet is that the idea came from a \u201cmedieval Slavic fable\u201d about a fox and wolf, but none of the articles <\/a>about the fable name an author or an actual source for the claim. Jean de La Fontaine wrote \u201cThe Wolf and the Fox in the Well\u201d<\/a> in 1678 where a fox sees the moon in the reflection in a well and thinks it is cheese. He leaps into the well, lands on one of two pails to draw water, and realizes that he has made a mistake. He eventually convinces a passing wolf by saying, \u201cIt is an exquisite cheese, made by Faunus from milk of the heifer Io.\u201d The greedy wolf jumps in, and the fox is able to escape.<\/p>\n

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