Monday, April 5, 2010

Food for Thought... Literally! Put it this way: If this food doesn't make you think, nothing will...


QUESTION:
Would you eat cheese made of human breast milk???

A bold New York couple named Daniel Angerer and Lori Mason, owners of the restaurant Klee Basserie, an all-natural eatery where Angerer is the head chef, have made headlines for - yep, you guessed it - featuring human breast-milk cheese at their eating establishment. The cheese is pictured above. Mmm mmm. Someone pass the Triscuits!!!

You can almost hear a collective "Ewww!" across North America.

Apparently, Angerer has also provided a breast-milk cheese recipe on his blog. (Source)

I wish I could shake their hand in person and tell them what a great thing they've done. Yet even before this matter was brought to my attention by my companion (thank you, Luisa!), I'd actually heard stories of people making cheese out of human breast milk. And maybe some plucky entrepreneurs have sold it elsewhere. But this is the first time I've heard about it being on the menu of a respected eating establishment.

Let me clarify something: I'm not excited because I plan to buy it by the pound (apparently it was selling for $2 an ounce on Toronto Kijiji, which is our equivalent in Canada to Craig's List).

(This raises an interesting question: Can vegans eat human breast milk cheese???)

No, I'm excited about it because it is bound to get more thoughtful people thinking about why they routinely eat cheese made out of cow's milk - milk that is meant for cows, not human beings - and not milk made out of human breast milk.

Oh, I know a lot of thoughtless people will dismiss this new treat as gross and not ponder the deeper philosophical implications of why they eat what they eat. I doubt that many patrons who order the Super Nachos at Hooters are going to request human breast milk cheddar atop their beloved snack.

But this is a real breakthrough that will hopefully provoke the more intelligent people to think twice about what they eat.

And who knows? When you think about it, eating cow's milk cheese instead of human's milk cheese is nothing but a human construct. People eat cow's milk cheese because that is what is culturally and traditionally accepted. If you change people's way of thinking, maybe human breast milk cheese might become the preferred choice instead of cow's milk cheese.

Then again, maybe not.

But I still think Angerer and Mason are Culinary Pioneers. I salute them wholeheartedly. This couple gets my Kudos of the week. And I hope - hope, hope, hope... hope against hope - their new delicacy will get people thinking about why the consume milk that is meant for calves, not human beings.

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