You may or may not know that the most expensive cheese in the world is Pule, a donkey cheese. You may also know that here at Wookey Farm, as well as goats, pigs and sheep, we have donkeys.
So, if we wanted to maximise our profits, we should make donkey cheese, right?
Wrong! Here are nine reasons why not:
1 We are not Serbian
Donkey Cheese is only made in one place: a farm in the Zasavica Nature Reserve farm in Serbia. We’d be guilty of cultural appropriation if we just ripped off their winning formula.
2 We prefer goats
Goats are awesome. Goats are like the dogs of the livestock world – responsive, fun-loving, and easy-going. Donkeys, on the other hand, have learned an annoying habit from cockerels and will wake you up at dawn – for a laugh.
3 Donkeys only produce 300 ml of milk
The reason Pule is so expensive is because it takes more milk to make the cheese and it takes more donkeys to make the milk.
4 Donkeys have to be milked by hand
It may be possible to create a donkey milking machine by studying the facial anatomy and suckling technique of the baby donkey, but no one’s done it yet.
5 Both our donkeys are male
This is the first thing they teach you in dairy school.
6 There’s no such thing as donkey cheese
Donkey milk doesn’t contain enough casein to make cheese, so 40% goat milk is added. It’s effectively goat cheese with donkey flavouring.
7 Just because it’s expensive doesn’t mean it’s good
A kilo of Pule costs $1,300. It may be good, but we’re not wealthy enough to ever know. We’ve never even tried donkey milk. Apparently, it’s remarkably similar to human breast milk.
8 Goat milk is better
It’s more digestible, lower in lactose, more versatile for cooking, lower in fat and tastier than cow’s milk. We have not ranked it against other mammals’ milks, but this dude has.
9 We can’t
Even if we wanted to – and we don’t (see above) – we don’t know the closely guarded secrets to making Pule.
If you’d like to experience for yourself how good goat cheese tastes, without donkey, why not come along to one of our tasting events?