PHOTOGRAPHY GETTY IMAGES (MAIN).
GOURMET TRAVELLER 81A
group of 12 prominent
Sydney chefs including Paul
Carmichael from Momofuku
Seiobo, Firedoor’s Tony
Gibson and Black Star Pastry founder
Christopher Thé, are seated at a long
table 47 levels above the city at O Bar
and Dining. The Sydney skyline glimmers
under a soft wash of rain as the guests
exchange gossip and jokes.
In front of everyone is a glass of
Louis Roederer Brut Premier NV. And
next to that is a glass of milk.
It’s not just any milk. This is deer
milk. The first deer milk to be produced
commercially anywhere in the world, and
it’s the reason for today’s gathering. It’s
not every day that an entirely new raw
ingredient enters the world. “It’s almost
like finding a new colour or a new music
note,” says O Bar and Dining’s owner
Michael Moore as he swirls the tumbler
of creamy, yellowish milk and brings it
to his lips.
The first note, however, falls a bit
flat. “It reminds me of when my kids were
little and you’d mix up baby formula,” he
says. Everyone chuckles. He’s not wrong.
Due to the lack of fresh processing options
available for the limited quantities of milk
produced, Pamu, the NZ company making
the product, sells it in powdered form. It’s
then reconstituted with water, giving it –
at least at first – the grainy aftertaste of
Eau d’Enfant detected by Moore. However,
as Pamu’s business development manager
Hamish Glendinning explains, the glass
we’re tasting is freshly-mixed deer milk.
To allow the fats to properly emulsify and
the graininess to dissolve, you have to let
it sit, refrigerated, for at least eight hours.
A second glass appears in front of the
chefs, this one properly rested, and the
group agrees that the milk has taken
on a much more palatable smoothness
and a clean, rich taste.
But all this resting and reconstituting
goes some way to explaining why deer
milk hasn’t become a thing until now.
Those steps are only part of the difficulty.
The other is that deer – in Pamu’s case
we’re talking about European red deer- aren’t particularly easy to milk. Cows,
which have been domesticated for around
10,000 years, will stand in a shed and
let humans relieve them of their milk
without much fuss, whereas deer, being
flightier and less tamed, are more likely
to kick or become otherwise alarmed.
There’s also the matter of yield: dairy
cows currently produce roughly 100 times
the amount of milk as deer. And then
there’s the hardware. “Did you have to
build an entirely new milking apparatus,
considering deer are built differently
to cows?” I ask Glendinning.
“Yes.”
“That must have been expensive?”
“Oh, you have no idea,” he says
with a wince.
In theory humans could drink the
milk of any mammal; if we had the
patience and the inclination we could be
putting whale milk, cat milk or bat milk
on our supermarket shelves. But the most
popular and viable milks are the same ones
we’ve been drinking for millennia – cow,
goat, camel and in a few geographical
pockets, water buffalo (India and Italy),
reindeer (Russia) and horse (Mongolia).
Cow milk is not only the easiest to acquire,
it’s also the most versatile. It has a similar
make-up to human breast milk so it’s
naturally palatable, and it easily separates
into cream, which is essential for cheese-
making. Goats also give a good yield –
although not as good as cows – and thatdistinct “goaty” flavour makes covetable
cheese. Camel milk is also growing in
popularity. Not only is it considered
particularly tasty, it contains high levels
of vitamins A and C and low levels of
lactose, which means it’s suitable for many
people who can’t tolerate cow’s milk.
There’ll always be someone who’ll try
to expand our dairy diets. Several years ago
US chef Edward Lee decided he wanted to
milk pigs. It didn’t end well. Not only do
pigs have between 12 and 14 tiny nipples,
as opposed to conveniently-graspable teats
like cows, but they’ve also got a temper.
“You get within 15 feet of a sow, she’ll get
up on her hind legs and get defensive,”
he toldModern Farmerat the time.
“She might charge you. And once she
charges you, just forget it.” Nonetheless
he eventually managed to extract a small
amount of milk from one of his pigs after
sneaking up on her while she was asleep.
He made ricotta from the milk, which he
claims was “delicious” but the experiment
ended there. At this point the words “pig
cheese” are – mercifully – yet to appear
on any menus.
Deer milk, however, may be set for
a brighter future. O Bar’s executive chef
Darren Templeman, who created the
afternoon’s tasting menu of deer-milk
buns and deer-milk ricotta, venison with
deer milk skin and a deer-milk gel, and a
dessert that included deer-milk custard
and ice-cream, says that while the product
was fiddly to prepare, he was pleased with
the results. They’ve already put an entrée
using crisped deer milk skin on the menu.
Black Star’s Christopher Thé believes that
there are possibilities to use the milk skin
as a decoration for cakes, perhaps in a
confection that worked with a broader
“deer” theme.
Firedoor’s sous-chef Tony Gibson
added that while he thought the milk
produced a beautiful, rich ice-cream and
would likely take well to smoke, he still
had reservations when it was cooked in
other ways, and he’d need to put lot
of time into testing it before he’d make
up his mind. He also stressed that pure
novelty wouldn’t be enough to get it over
the line. “We won’t put it on our menu
just because it’s deer milk,” he says. “It
has to work as well or better than milks
we already have.”●From top: Pamu deer milk powder;
deer on New Zealand’s South
Island; Cognac-cured venison loin,
charred brassicas and deer milk
skin at O Bar and Dining.