What is a “Cheese Moon”?

31 July 2014

The Short Answer (TSA)

. . . or is it “Moon Cheese”? What is “Moon Cheese?” Well, it’s “natural” and it’s "crunchy." Hey, wait. That’s a snack food. Opps, excuse me, its actually pure cheese from which all the moisture’s been removed. But, hold on. None of the flavors (it comes in three flavors) look green.

Let’s get back to the cheese moon.

Green Cheese Moon?

Did anyone ever really think that the Moon was made of green cheese?

Well, no. The expression “the moon is made of green cheese” is actually part of the legends and folklore of a number of cultures. And, the expression has always meant about what it means, today. A person who believed that the moon was made of green cheese was . . . well, . . . “a few cans short of a six-pack” if you know what I mean.

The old legends always had the same basic story line. A not-so-bright character sees the reflection of the moon in a pool of water (or pond, river, stream or well) and thinks it’s a large round block of cheese. Then, the mistaken viewer tries to get the cheese, falls into water, and almost drowns.

In most versions of the story, the hapless cheese-chaser is encouraged to believe the reflection is really a cheese by a clever passerby or companion. The clever deceiver, then, convinces the cheese-chaser to leave some valuable property on shore. Then, the companion makes off the abandoned valuables when the cheese-chaser falls into the water.

Several hundred years ago, “the moon made of green cheese” became proverbial in western literature. To hoax, con, or fool someone was often referred to as trying to make a victim believe that “the moon was made of green cheese.”

Another question. Why is the cheese green?

There’s no type of cheese that’s actually called green cheese. Blue is the closest color-name I found associated with cheese. To be honest, some “blue” cheese looks a bit blue-green to me. So, it may be possible to find some examples of green colored cheese, but no cheese-maker will claim the color green by name.

But in the old legends and folktales, “green” didn’t refer to a color. Instead the word “green” referred to the age of the cheese. A “green” cheese was a cheese that had not been aged yet.

Since an un-aged cheese isn’t actually the color green, what does a green cheese look like? It’s white and has the consistency of cream cheese. And that’s the point. The reflection that our easily fooled cheese-chaser would have seen in the water wasn’t the color green. Instead it was the reflection of a normal, white full moon, which he foolishly mistakes for a round block of un-aged cheese and tries to go after it.

So, in the end, we can conclude that absolutely no one has ever really believed that the moon was actually made out of cheese of any color. Right?

Well, not so fast. At least one commentator claims that the moon is made of cheese. Worse, there is a “cover up.”   Both NASA together with Google Moon (it’s just like Google Earth only with views of the Moon) have conspired to ingeniously conceal the Moon’s true . . . consistency or composition or something.

This spells real danger for the next astronauts who may, someday, visit our dairy-product satellite. I’m not sure that the theorist is entirely serious about all this, but a landing module could sink far and fast in a tranquil sea of cream cheese.

Our next lunar astronauts might be well-advised to secretly store a large quantity of crackers on board – just in case they are forced to eat their way out of the cream cheese version of quicksand.

Please read: Is the moon made out of cheese? [humor]

M Grossmann of Hazelwood, Missouri
(& Belleville, Illinois)
31 July 2014
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