“It’s milk, Jim, but not as we know it”

Thursday’s story about the raw milk vending machines in Poland attracted quite a lot of interest among Bovine readers. In fact it was the top story of the week with 1,383 page views as of Sunday morning. Which brings us ’round to today’s article, which likewise deals with raw milk vending machines, but this time in England. You may remember there was a bit of flap over there recently about a big store which had the temerity to install such a machine in one of its London stores. Well here’s more news arising from that self-same machine, which seems to still be dispensing raw milk, right there in the heart of London. And perhaps surprisingly, from a North American perspective, the London Bobbies don’t seem to have their knickers in a knot over that simple fact of life:

From Tom Parker Bowles on The Mail Online UK:

The Times' caption for this picture reads like advertising copy for raw milk: "The first taste is a revelation, rich, bounteous and fulsome"

“The machine, nearly 6ft of solid, gleaming steel, sits just to the left of Oddono’s ice cream in London’s Selfridges. And is a mere Tunworth’s roll from the groaning cheese counter.  Which seems entirely apt, as this magnificent monolith dispenses milk, the heart and soul of them both. But this is no run-of-the-mill dairy dullard; it’s a repository of raw, unpasteurised milk from Sussex – buxom, beguiling cowgirl rather than joyless, emaciated waif.

Plug in a few nuggets, put your glass bottle under the spout and out pours a whole litre of foaming, cream-rich delight.  The first taste is a revelation, rich, bounteous and fulsome, like tasting real milk for the very first time.  It’s impeccably clean and fresh, whipping through the mouth with lactic élan, and leaving nothing behind save a lingering, luscious sigh.  It’s milk, Jim, but not as we know it.