Sunday, March 21, 2010
Just checked the old band email...
I stumbled upon your Web site with its "list of the 40 sickest cheeses". I thought I would point out a couple of things:
First of all, not all mammal milks can produce cheese. For cheese to be made, the milk must have enough caseins in proportion to milkfat and lactose. For the most part only land herbivores are suitable. There could not be a cheese from aquatic animals such as seal or whale. Nor could there be a cheese from marsupials such as wallaby, wombat, and 'possum, since their milk is of a completely different form and type.
Two of the cheeses on your list, however, actually exist: yak cheese and musk ox cheese. They are not as sick as they sound.
Yaks are very closely related to cattle. In Kashmir and Tibet, they are often kept for their wool and milk. The nomadic peoples of the region have for centuries made yak cheese, which is used as a commodity in trade. The cheese often finds its way to markets in Mongolia and Soviet Central Asia.
Musk ox cheese is also an actual product. Domesticated musk oxen are sometimes kept in Siberia, Alaska, and the Canadian arctic territories. Although they are raised mainly for wool, they are also occasionally milked for rare "oomingmak cheese". It is considered a delicacy, and is sometimes found at teahouses and lodges in the far Northern trading towns. It is sometimes used in omelets made from the eggs of the murre, an Arctic bird.
Regards,
Jeffery G.
