Posted on November 21, 2007 - by deCadmus

Fatty Cappuccino? Blame the Reindeer.

It’s fair to say that, on this side of the pond, Heather Mills doesn’t get much attention. Who? Oh, you know… married the Beetle. No, not that one. The other one. There you are.¹

In the UK, however, Heather gets the same sort of air-time and intense media scrutiny as, say, Britney, and for similar reasons: their lives are high-wire acts that could come careening down — in a tragic yet altogether riveting manner — at any moment.

But now she’s done it.

During another typically bizarre day for Heather Mills, the former model yesterday urged people to try drinking milk from rats and dogs to help save the planet.

First of all, just try to *not* imagine milking a rat. It’s rather like trying not to think about pink elephants, albeit on a much smaller scale. And second, it’s just the kind of nonsensical declaration that gets people, like Laura Barton at the Guardian, to pondering, “…how does one milk a rat?” and, “Would rodent milk make a decent latte?”

“I would imagine she was thinking that any mammal produces milk,” says Juliet Harbutt, chairman of the British Cheese Awards, kindly. “However, if one would like to envisage, just for a moment, the difficulty of actually milking a rat, perhaps it would provide the answer. It would probably be easier to milk a whale. They’re bigger.”

According to Harbutt, the milk of goats, sheep, buffalo, reindeer, camels, horses and asses is used to make cheese, and theoretically one could milk a pig. “Though again,” she adds, “milking a pig could only be described as a challenge.”

No kidding.

As to the latte angle… your typical coffee bar serves more milk than they do coffee. Lots more. Three to five times more. Behind the coffee bar the choice of milk is serious business… business that you might routinely dismiss with your preference for 2% or 1% or — for pity’s sake — soy! And in the rarefied atmosphere of world-class barista competition, finding just the right milk is critical (if, occasionally, somewhat more serious than it appears.)²

But reindeer milk! Weighing in at a whopping 22% milk fat, reindeer milk is pretty much a brevé on the hoof! Consider that for your Christmas cappuccino!

Notes and Links

1. Honestly, I don’t think she’s got any air-time here since she did on that C-list celebrity dance-off thing, and even then we only tuned in to see if her prosthetic leg might come flying off during a particularly dramatic dance move. It didn’t, otherwise we’d still be talking about it. ↩
2. You really have to watch the video. Really. Do. ↩