Jennifer Billock is a journalist, author, and professional cheese and food fortune teller.
Otherwise known as tyromancy, Billock reads the surface of cheese, similar to reading tea leaves.
“I do individual sessions, group sessions, parties, events, virtual sessions — all sorts of things. I have a book coming out about it next year,” she said.
According to Billock, it was historically a professional dream diviner who wrote about tyromancy. “He did not like tyromancy. He basically said it was like being in league with the devil. After that, it became more popular in the medieval and early modern eras. Generally, in Europe and that part of the world, where Asian communities were more into tea leaves and coffee grounds and things like that.”
“The practice itself was first mentioned in the second century, coming from Ephesus, which is now in Turkey,” she added.
Billock has been writing about witchcraft, food, and history for nearly 20 years, and her published books include a best-selling exploration of the scientific and metaphysical properties of gemstones, as well as titles on history and astrology.
Since launching her telling fortunes with cheese practice in 2021, Billock has led “Witch Kraft” cheese readings, finding ways to divine meaning from everything from fancy wheels to Kraft singles.
“I got bored, so I’ve been doing divination since I was little with everything I could find, including sticks, rocks, tarot cards, and oracle cards. I’ve done everything,” Billock noted.
Recently, Billock expanded her edible divination skills to chocolate, when she partnered with Snickers and the NFL, as their official “Chocomancer” for the 2024 football season.
Billock’s day job is as a travel writer, and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she searched online for weird ways to tell fortunes with food. “I found cheese. I was very excited about it because I love cheese.”
As for clients of the “Cheese Witch,” Billock said a lot of people seem to really love it. “Everybody seems to have a good time. There are people that come in who are like, ‘this is ridiculous’ and I’m like, ‘a little bit, but it’s fun.’”
“Regardless of whether someone believes it to be true or not, everybody seems to have a good time, and you get to eat cheese, so there’s nothing wrong with that. Unless you’re allergic,” she joked.
In the past, people have used methods such as dumping molten lead into a bucket of water to see what shape it would make, “which seems a little unsafe,” she explained. “I think throughout history, people have used pretty much everything they can find to do divination, just because it’s what you had on hand.”
If you felt like you were lacking control or wanted extra guidance, you just used what was available, Billock added.
With her readings, Billock asks clients virtually to send a picture of their cheese plate in advance. “I share my screen, and I put their pictures into the presentation and just point at things on my screen with my mouse, while I’m telling them their fortune.”
“I start by looking at the cracks and the holes. If it’s a blue cheese, maybe the mold veins. I can look at the shapes and patterns made in the cheese,” she explained. “As I get more into the reading, there are things I have to say that maybe don’t even come from the cheese, but I’m just hearing in my head.”
Billock is also on a personal journey to get her fortune told in the most unique ways possible. “There’s so much out there people don’t know about.”
“It’s always a learning experience. Even if you don’t learn anything, at least with my sessions, you get to eat cheese,” she added.
For more information about cheese divination, check out kitchenwitch.substack.com.
