Buzz
It’s common knowledge that Earth’s moon isn’t made of dairy products. So how did the idea that the moon is made of cheese come to be?
Although the concept of the moon being made of cheese has existed for centuries, it’s unlikely anyone genuinely believed it, at least not in an intellectual sense. The earliest record of this strange belief comes from a medieval Slavic fable, where a starving wolf chases a seemingly helpless fox, hoping to catch an easy meal. The fox tricks the wolf into thinking that the moon’s reflection on a nearby pond is a block of floating cheese, and the wolf must drink all the pond's water to claim it. The wolf drinks excessively and ultimately bursts, leaving the fox unharmed and victorious.
The most famous early mention of this myth dates back to 1546, found in The Proverbs of John Heywood. This collection includes some of the author’s best-known sayings, like “the more, the merrier,” “a penny for your thoughts,” and “Rome was not built in a day.” At one point, he humorously claims, “the moon is made of greene cheese,” with “greene” referring to the cheese’s age rather than its color.
Over the next century, the phrase became widely used. In 1638, the English natural philosopher John Wilkins remarked, “you may … soon persuade some country peasants that the moon is made of greene cheese, (as we say).”
Although the scientific community has never endorsed the idea, countless children’s shows, from Tom and Jerry to Wallace and Gromit, have featured their own moon-cheese jokes.
Even NASA couldn’t resist joining in on the fun. On April Fool’s Day 2002, the space agency claimed to have “proved” that the moon was made of cheese by releasing a Photoshopped image with an expiration date stamped on one of the moon’s craters.
