Why Don't We Eat Pig Milk Cheese?

We only tend to drink milk from cows, but we eat cheese from a much larger assortment of animals, primarily cow, goat, and sheep. We certainly tend to eat a lot more pigs than goats and sheep, so why don't we also use pig's milk to make cheese?

Pig milk cheese is impossible to find for a variety of reasons. The most important reason is also the reason we don't drink pig milk: Pigs are really, really difficult to milk. Sows can be extremely aggressive, especially when they're lactating; they can only produce a small amount of milk at one time; and because no sow-milking machine has been invented, they must be milked by hand, which can be incredibly dangerous.

Pig's milk is also not especially tasty. Even though it contains more fat than cow's milk, it's more watery, and its flavor is also much gamier than cow's milk.

But where there's milk, there's cheese, and there are some enterprising individuals out there who have indeed made cheese from pig milk. Chef Edward Lee was able to snag some pig milk (he crept up on sows when they were sleeping) and made ricotta with it, which he deemed delicious. And a Dutch farmer gathered up 10 of his friends to spend dozens of hours milking sows, which only resulted in a few pounds of cheese after several failed attempts. It apparently was chalky and grainy, with some creaminess and saltiness, and was sold for $2,300 per kilogram, making it among the most expensive cheese ever produced.