Human Milk Cheese.

Doesn’t the idea of cheese from human milk sound yummy?

No. Not really.

A student from the University of New York is pushing new boundaries by offering up cheese made from human milk.  She is attempting to define and explore the boundaries of food ethics.

In her words:

As we navigate the complex landscape of technologically modified food production, how do we understand what is natural, healthy, ethical? If wereject all technologically modified food in favor of what is ‘natural,’ how far back to do we go? If we are to welcome new technologies into our lives, how will we continue to redefine what is natural, normal and healthy? How will this change our relationship to each other, the natural world and ourselves? If we are determined to continue to enjoy our cheese, perhaps it is most natural, ethical and healthy to eat human cheese? And if not, what otherbiotechnological processes does this force us to reconsider?

Right. I’m just  going to jump right in here with my opinion and say that most natural, ethical and healthy way enjoy cheese is to not eat cheese made from human milk.   I think its pretty gross and right up there with placenta pie.   The cook in me instantly vomits up the idea that food should be made with ingrediants that first taste good and second are not made from the same species as those who are doing the cooking.  Bad zombie movies aside, in the past, we have learned that feeding a species to itself does not do good things (think bovine spongiform encephalopathy a.k.a mad cow disease).  While certainly a noble and bile boiling attempt at pushing the boundaries of food academically speaking, it is still pretty odd/weird/gross.

The above pic is courtesy of this site and was taken at the last human cheese tasting held in New York.  Again in her own words describing one of her cheeses:

Airily aged in a room high above the east village while the cheese is still very young, this tough little cheese is a human-cow blend. Made from the milk of a kind, young mother of Chinese descent hailing from midtown Manhattan, and a cow born and raised in the Catskills. Between working in private equity and eating lots of sweets, this mother has retained hints of her pregnant plumpness, producing a sweet, creamy milk, a delightful balance to the grassy cow milk it intermingles with. Sweet airy equity is a mild hard cheese that crumbles in your mouth, with a smooth lingering finish that leaves only the slightest hint of walnut on your tongue.

Oh, I almost forgot,  if you are in the New York area and are lactating, the creator of human milk chesse, Miriam Simun, is looking for people to work with.  Oddly,  in light of the ethical, boundary pushing scope  of this project, she is only looking for women to work with despite the well documented and surprisingly common phenomenon of male lactation. I humbly disgorge that while not as prolific at producing milk as their female counterparts, men blessed with the ability to be milked should be included in the production of said boundry pushing cheeses.  I would even go so far as to say, that like heirloom varieties of other milk producing creatures, male milk cheese should rightly command a higher price if for nothing more then its scarcity and artisanal value.

Thanks to Serious Eats for this odd, slightly unsettling and generally gross story.