A high school teacher has gone viral for her atypical appetite, but one of her simplest snacks is winning people over.
Courtney Cook Bales, 36, has acquired a devoted TikTok following for her video series about her daily lunches, which usually consist of unusual, savory pairings that she puts together in her Georgia classroom. While Bales has used ingredients like whole green onions, marinated eggs, and spicy ramen, the snack that has captured the internet’s attention is simply made up of a sweet potato and a block of cheese.
The mom-of-four often constructs easy “ploughman’s lunches” in her classroom that do not require much cooking or too many complicated ingredients. While the exact sweet potato and the cheeses vary in the recipe, Bales typically bakes the potato for over an hour and stuffs the cheese inside the potato so that it all melts together and can be eaten with just her hands — no silverware needed.
“It’s just so wholesome, so filling, it really gives me energy,” Bales said in a video posted December 10, which has since garnered over five million views.
The teacher uses Japanese or white sweet potatoes and adds dairy like cheddar, butterkäse, and cottage cheese. In a video earlier this month, Bales recommended letting the potato cool for hours so that it becomes syrupy before the cheese is added. Although the only two ingredients really needed are the potato and cheese, Bales often adds toppings like macaroni salad, sweet onion cups and pickles.
TikTok users have been equally grossed out and delighted over the “addictive” snacking series, with one comment on Bales’s posts reading: “I’m disturbed but intrigued at the same time.”
“Girl you’ve got TikTok on a sweet potato/cheese chokehold,” another wrote, with a third chiming in: “The amount of people you’ve influenced between the ploughman lunches and the sweet potatoes need to be studied.”
“You’d make a good saleswoman. Everything you eat, I WANT. Even if I know I don’t like it I want it. And on that note tomorrow I will be getting sweet potatoes for lunch,” another wrote.
Other TikTokers shared their experience trying Bales’s snack, with one writing: “I know this wasn’t really your intention, but you have me eating a sweet potato and cheese every dang day and it keeps me so full and cuts out so much food noise!! So not only have I added more fiber, I’m eating way less junk. So thank you!”
Bales told People that she did not expect viral fame from her cravings, gaining more than one million followers in under seven months, but said, “We are all figuring things out for the first time, and people will always have opinions, but I am learning to live for myself rather than shaping my choices around people who may not understand me.
“If my videos help someone feel more confident, joyful, and free with their own food choices, then that is exactly the message I hope to share.”
