Peer Into the Future With Foods Used to Tell Your Fortune

Coffee, tea, eggs, cheese, and onions are more than weekend brunch ingredients. For centuries, people have turned to food to tell fortunes, divining their destiny in the craggy veins of blue cheese or the patterns of coffee grounds. Here, we scour the pantry for the foods you might use to prophesy your future.

Tasseography: tea-sing the future

Tasseography, also known as tasseomancy or tassology, is the most popular of kitchen divination practices. Tasseography is the interpretation of patterns in coffee grounds and tea leaves after drinking. Believed to have originated in ancient China (where tea drinking began), the practice of tasseography followed the trade routes of both coffee and tea across the world.

Tasseography first appeared in Turkey not long after 1540, when coffee was first introduced. For the Turkish tradition of reading the coffee grounds leftover from the famously thick coffee, the drinker must sip their coffee in a calm, patient manner. The coffee is swirled lightly before the last sip, when a question is asked. The cup is then inverted over a saucer and, while holding it at chest height, the drinker makes three circular clockwise motions. When the cup is flipped right side up, the dregs form patterns which can be read.

Coffee interpreters view the cup in five sections: the handle represents the querent, or the person who receives the reading. Additionally, the handle relates to matters in love while the front rim represents finances; the upper rim, the present day; and the lower rim, home and family matters. At the bottom of the cup, interpreters divine the future — the most intriguing subject of all. Large amounts of dregs remaining on the saucer mean current worries will soon vanish.

To read tea leaves, only loose leaf tea brewed directly in the pot (or cup) will do. (Don’t trap your loose leaf tea leaves in a reusable filter!) Like divination with coffee grounds, the drinker swirls the tea while thinking of the question that needs answers before their final sip. According to the Horniman Museum & Gardens in London, the practitioner observes the shapes formed by the leaves to discern answers for the querent. Tea dust that settles into lines indicates travel while capital letters allude to place names. Should you spot a lowercase letter, think of the name of someone in your life and how they may affect your future.

Ovomancy: great egg-spectations

Also known as oomancy, ooscopy, oomancia, oomantia, or ooscopia, the practice of ovomancy requires reading the shapes or changes in eggs to predict the future. Egg divination was practiced throughout ancient Rome. Today, ovomancy continues to be practiced in Spain on St. John’s Eve (June 23) and in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man during Samhain, the Celtic celebration of the harvest (November 1) and one of the sources for modern Halloween.

Just as eggs bring their versatile power to everything from Baked Alaska to cocktails, omelets, and doughnuts, eggs are also multipurpose in divination. According to Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Divination: Your Definitive Source for Learning Predictive & Prophetic Techniques, one method calls for egg whites to be added to hot water. Practitioners interpret the shapes of the cooked egg white for signs of future events; a bell can foretell a wedding celebration while a snake-like form could be a sign of impending evil. In another method, oomancers rubbed a raw egg, still in its shell, over the belly of a pregnant woman before cracking it open in a saucer. One egg yolk meant the birth of a single child while two or three foretold twins or triplets, respectively. Blood in the yolk was a harbinger of illness or difficult childbirth.

Tyromancy: take the gouda with the bad

Tyromancy is the art of divining the past, present, and future through cheese — a practice first documented in the second century B.C. by Artimedorus of Ephesus and one that continues to this day. Everything from rainy seasons to potential suitors could be predicted through careful observation of mold patterns as well as the number and depth of holes in cheese, something to chew on as you bite into a Reuben sandwich with melty Swiss cheese. And, just as in ovomancy, there’s more than one way to take a slice of the future with cheese.

According to The Cheese Professor,young women engraved the names of potential suitors on a firm cheese;  where the mold grew first would indicate the identity of their ideal paramour. In another technique, a series of answers were written on pieces of cheese that were then placed in a cage shared by a hungry mouse. Naturally, whichever cheese was first selected by the mouse was the answer to the person’s question.

Cromniomancy: divination through onions

Who knew that the key ingredient in your favorite onion dip can help tell the future? Though cromniomancy, the practice of foretelling the future through onions, is a slower method than ovomancy or tyromancy, it has its adherents. According to Llewellyn’s Complete Book of Divination: Your Definitive Source for Learning Predictive & Prophetic Techniques, people used to write names of suitors on a piece of paper inserted into an onion that was then buried. Whichever onion sprouted first signaled the answer searched for, whether it was the name of a suitor.

In the southwestern German countryside on New Year’s Eve, 12 onion slices, each representing a month, are laid in a row and sprinkled with salt. The slice that releases the greatest amount of moisture indicates the wettest month of the new year.

Fortune telling has taken many forms over the centuries, and it’s little surprise that some of those forms can be found in the kitchen. So when you’re making your next batch of eggs Benedict or soaking tea leaves for a smoky chicken salad, consider what the future has in store (or in pantry storage) for you.