Big British Food Map Things that make you go moo

Date Published:

30/04/2008

'Milk' as the 1980s advert featuring two football loving Scouse kids informed us, is 'what Ian Rush drinks'. And 20 years on milk's still thought of as something for children. As an adult it's simply there for wetting cereal or diluting tea or coffee, the ever-present, ever-the-same white stuff in the fridge right?

Well not quite. There's milk, and then there's real milk, and today I tasted the latter in its purest form, unpasteurised and straight from the cow.

Down on the farm

Chris Hall has a small organic herd of 30 Guernsey cows on third generation land in the village of Treen. Those caramel coloured beauties produce 80,000 litres a year, but Chris can only sell a fraction of that, some 10,000 litres, as unpasteurised, and then only from a small hatch in the wall of his milking shed or from a milk round that he runs locally. In short he's not allowed to sell it in supermarkets because of tight government controls around raw milk.

As I arrive he's finishing the morning milking. Carefully checking each cow underneath before attaching the apparatus. He explains the lengths he goes to, to ensure his milk is good; the testing, the inspections, and the animal husbandry.

"Guernsey's produce less milk than Holstein cows, but it's of a better quality" say's Chris. "It's almost golden in colour". And though it looks a little thicker and off-white, I assume that it's because it's just come out of the cow. That is until we compare it to pints of ordinary milk I've brought along for a blind taste test. There's a pint of Robert Wiseman's semi-skimmed, and a pint of Tesco's own brand blue top. Paula, Chris's wife, pours out three samples without Chris or me seeing and then I'm invited to taste them. Out of the big steel drum and with something to contrast it too Chris's milk stands out by a country mile, taking on a lovely golden hue colour, while in comparison the contents of the other two glasses look pale.

Taste test

I begin the taste test despite knowing instantly which one is Chris's. And how can I describe it? The milk from Chris's cows went mental in my mouth. "It's a food not a drink" says Chris. It doesn't just taste like thicker milk, as that would be cream, it tastes like the sum of all milk, that then explodes after you swallow, coating the inside of your mouth with a thin film of butter. It's not so much creamy as grassy and fatty. In short, it's complex and intense.

While I'm there Hugh Eddy from Davas Cornish yoghurts arrives. He's primarily a sheep's milk, yoghurt and cheese producer who takes a small amount of Chris' produce for a cow's milk-based yoghurt he makes called 'Molly's'. He tells me that it's legal to sell unpasturised sheep's milk.

I end by asking Chris what he feels is the future for a product like this. "All I want is to be able to be allowed to sell my milk in shops so more people can try it. It's freedom of choice." It's worth seeking out people like Chris who want to sell milk in this way as well as cheese makers that use it to make unpasturised cheese as the flavour is amazing.

The Food Standards Agency warns raw milk can be harmful to certain groups, such as pregnant women and the elderly as it has not been heat-treated. And it might not be to everyone's liking, but then again neither is Japanese blowfish.

We can't all come to within five miles of Land's End to get it, but there might be a raw milk producer somewhere near you. Have a look on the Seeds of Health website. In the meantime some one should tell Ian Rush.