Eating human cheese: The Lady Cheese Shop (est. 2011)
The pleasure of eating and all the imaginative cultural variations of food and hospitality recall the 'maternal waters' which a member of the human community served to us once without asking for anything but that we take it in.
Eva-Maria Simms, Milk and Flesh, 2001.
Cannibalism and anthropophagy are topics regularly addressed in visual culture. One of the most iconic examples is the American science fiction film Soylent Green (1973).1 The film shows an apocalyptic scenario in which the pollution and destruction of the environment have greatly affected the food chain, leading to the extinction of non‐humans. Humans are left with no option but to consume processed food (high-protein wafers) made with plankton. The scarcity of this organism, however, forces them to eat another source of protein: human bodies.
Artists have also paid attention to the 'cannibalistic' eating of the other, however, in most cases this is used as a metaphorical device. Take for example the work of Mexican artist César Martínez who, since the 1990s, has presented different PerforMANcenas (PerforMANdinners). These performances invite the public to participate in a metaphorical ritual of cannibalism, eating human-scale sculptocooked bodies made out of gelatine or chocolate, often representing Mexico’s social body.2 In this case, however, the artist shapes the human body out of edibles rather than taking on the corporeality of the body as food.
In this essay I will focus on the idea of eating the body of the other, specifically that of the mother, both human and non-human. I will discuss the work of American artist Miriam Simun, particularly her project Human Cheese, which questions the production of food and its commodification by reimagining and creating food products made by the human body.3 As part of this project, in 2011 Simun created the installation The Lady Cheese Shop as an artistic practice that highlighted the possibility of eating the body of an(other) human, (if we consider the fluids produced by a person part of their corporeality). This artwork, furthermore, addressed contemporary practices of chefs and mothers who experiment with breast milk to create dairy-related products like cheese or ice cream.4
Eating human cheese, as troubling as it seems, is a real possibility. But what does eating human cheese imply? What sort of reactions does this edible trigger? Most importantly, how does this relate to the ethics of hospitality? First of all, The Lady Cheese Shop emphasises the pertinence of discussing food production and consumption within the food system by cleverly pointing to feminist, ecological and ethical concerns related to food and the maternal. Second, it is an artistic practice that highlights the complexities of the notion of hospitality as it recreates dynamics inscribed in the hospitality industry, such as tasting sessions, which have grown exponentially as part of fine dining experiences. At the same time, it enables considering feeding an(other) with our body as a corporeal act of hospitality, and where the materiality of our bodies—its fluids, flesh, and other organic and biological elements—is shared in order to welcome the other.
Miriam Simun: Creating human cheese
The Lady Cheese Shop (est. 2011) was presented in the Michael Mut Gallery in New York City. During four days (April 28th – May 1st 2011) the gallery was transformed into a pop-up shop where members of the public were hosted and invited to participate in one of the cheese-tasting sessions. The only instruction was, as the press release suggested, to be open to food practices and 'follow [their] gut' to decide if they wanted to taste human-dairy products.5
Simun aimed to use locally sourced ingredients, following contemporary practices and trends of consuming organic and sustainable food, which explains why two of the cheeses were made from 'locally sourced' (donated) breast milk from two women living in New York (Chelsea and Midtown).6 The third sample was 'imported' breast milk (bought on the internet) from a woman living in the US state of Wisconsin, which ironically, is known for producing good-quality cheeses.7 The idea of a locally sourced food is further emphasised by Simun in the title of her photograph Fresh human cheese in front of its urban pasture, 2011, depicting a freshly made cheese against the city skyline.
Fig.1: Miriam Simun. Fresh human cheese in front of its urban pasture, 2011
Image available at: http://www.miriamsimun.com/hum...
Accessing breast milk involves certain barriers. Simun considered various possibilities for acquiring breast milk, including: finding women willing to share their milk, asking friends who were breastfeeding, or through web platforms where women sell, donate, and buy breast milk. She chose to buy milk, and was also able to get a donor. However, Simun explains that finding the milk was not the only challenge; she also had to arrange the transportation of the samples, which were delivered by express courier, while the donated one was given to her in person. More importantly, and as oddly as this may sound, as a hygienic requirement, milk—the 'most natural food' — needs to be tested in order to prove it is free from pathogens that could increase the risk of infection or disease for consumers.8 The samples purchased by Simun had to be confirmed as a safe food product for The Lady Cheese Shop customers. A focus on safety and hygiene is further emphasised during the commercial cheese-making process, as cheeses are often made with pasteurised milk.9
After the obstacle of obtaining the breast milk, the cheese-making process was not a simple matter. It required knowledge of the characteristics of the milk used to produce the cheese and the processes involved, including heating, tempering, stirring, or draining. Simun emphasises, that one of the main reasons why '[p]ure human cheese is, for now, not biochemically possible' is due in part to the particular physicochemical composition of breast milk, especially in relationship to the small amount of casein it contains compared to the milk of other female mammals.10 Casein is a protein directly related to the cheese-making process and responsible for the curdling or coagulation of the milk, an essential characteristic for producing cheese.11 Consequently, in order to produce the cheeses, Simun had no choice but to add another source of casein to achieve a firm consistency: goat’s milk.
The hybrid human and non-human cheeses produced by Simun were presented in tasting sessions at the gallery, following similar protocols to those used in fine dining establishments and by cheesemongers. For the tasting, the artist joined forces with chef Sarah Hymanson who created amuse-bouche samples of the cheeses, paired with wines and other foods 'inspired by the cultural and microbial terroir of each cheese'.12 It is worth noting that the serving of small portions of various cheeses, often made with different milks, is common practice within the hospitality industry, especially in European-influenced fine dining establishments. Furthermore, each of the cheeses had a label that explained the origin of the cheese, and described its organoleptic characteristics. During the event Simun performed as a waitress, walking among the public and offering them the amuse-bouche.
The Lady Cheese Shop is an artistic practice that conveys multiple significations of hospitality. It addresses maternal hospitality by seducing the audience through hospitality practices that are embedded in relationships of exchange, the primary exchange being that of the mother and child. The installation emphasises, moreover, the differences between corporeal hospitality and hospitality that is embedded in a logic of economic exchange, while it also highlights the phallocentric assumptions of the role of women in hospitality narratives, as well as in motherhood. In both cases, however, subjects are subsumed to a logic in which they serve and/or feed an(other). Furthermore, The Lady Cheese Shop played with food practices to question the ethical implications of food production and its consumption. The tasting sessions were devised by Simun as a means to trigger reactions of disgust, interest or indifference when presenting the eaters/public with breast milk products in order to address and question the commodification of female bodies, both human and non-human.
The mouth of the public: Human cheese tasting and hospitality
The Lady Cheese Shop mimicked food practices in the hospitality industry, particularly in fine dining. The corporeal fluids that were transformed into cheeses by Simun were served during tasting sessions, a decision that represented a more accessible and 'hospitable' approach —rather than offering them white fluid, culturally linked to notions of disgust and abjection— which facilitated the idea of eating the body of the other by offering breast milk cheese to the public. To some extent, the transformation of maternal fluids into solid food aimed to prevent the public’s first impression of breast milk being one of disgust and aversion, bearing in mind that the 'feminine-maternal' is, as Rosemary Betterton emphasises, 'a primary source of abjection in contemporary culture'.13 Thus, in Simun’s work, the discomforting fluidity of the maternal body was contained in a more manageable product, appearing palatable and appetising, but most importantly as a food that is socially and culturally accepted: as cheese. This transformation entailed a re-evaluation of the fluidity of the body, of the 'mechanics of [maternal] fluids'—following Betterton and Irigaray—that constantly linger between the inside and outside, and which become the source of cultural abjection.14
At first sight, the cheeses looked like any other non-human-milk cheese, white and soft in texture, similar to fresh cheeses like ricotta. Offering canapés to the public was an expected gesture of hospitality, as it is common during exhibition openings. The reference to the maternal body was initially disguised from the avid eaters waiting to take a mouthful of cheese during the installation. In other words, the normalcy of appearance of the cheese constituted a provisory tactic to question the taboo of consuming human maternal fluids. Simun emphasised this edible trompe l’oeil by portraying herself as cheesemonger and hostess/server/waitress. Simun was dressed in a short-sleeved, black chef’s jacket and holding an assortment of cheeses. This mimicking of a woman working in the hospitality industry, addresses the expected role of women in hospitality narratives, where they are seen only as the medium rather than active participants in hospitality.
Fig.2. Miriam Simun. The Lady Cheese Shop, 2011
The artist serving cheese made from breastmilk of three different women.
Image available in: http://www.miriamsimun.com/hum...
Each of the cheeses was named in relationship to their provenance and organoleptic characteristics. For the tasting sessions they were carefully paired with ingredients selected by chef Sarah Hymanson to emphasise and highlight the influence of the dietary habits of the milk donors in the taste of the cheeses. In other words, the aim was to feature the terroir of the cheeses, as sommeliers and chefs in fine dining venues do.15 These breast milk cheeses were accompanied by labels stating their names and a brief description that included the ingredients, particularly emphasising that the milks were from human and non-human species.
Writer Bonnie Hulkower attended one of the cheese-tasting sessions and described the three varieties according to their characteristics. She mentioned Sweet Airy Equity as a cheese with a similar texture to ricotta made from the milk of a mother with a preference for sweets; she inferred that the chef opted to pair it with an orange spice cake in order to intensify the taste and diet of the donor’s milk. City Funk was labelled as a blue cheese, although the name probably referred to the diet of the donor: a consumer of beef and high amounts of alcohol.16 Finally, Hulkower mentioned the labelling of the Wisconsin Bang as a 'mozzarella-style' cheese 'made from ‘two wonderful milks’ a goat and a woman from Wisconsin who eats a mostly organic diet.'17 These labels reinforced and simulated cheese-tasting practices and/or those performed in cheese shops. They had a vital function in giving visitors the information they needed to uncover the maternal cheeses from their initial veiling. Most importantly, though, the descriptions re-in-corporated the maternal body and human breast milk as the central focus of the exhibition:18
It was only while reading the description of Wisconsin Bang, […] did it dawn on me that the 'organic diet' being described was that of an actual female human and not the artist anthropomorphizing the goat. I gulped when I realized what I was actually eating. For a moment, I felt a bit queasy. I had not tasted breast milk since I was three. I must have liked it then. As I took another bite of cheese, I thought about the flavour. It was creamy, perhaps a bit more watery than other mozzarella, but if no one had mentioned it, I would not have noticed a difference.
Like Hulkower, art critic Nicole Caruth describes the moment when she discovered that the cheeses contained breast milk, highlighting the flavours, textures, and emotions triggered by such a foodstuff. However, in comparison to Hulkower’s comments, Caruth’s reaction showed a higher degree of disgust:19
Midtown Smoke, the only cheese that was left when I arrived, was described as being 'made from the milk of a young Chinese mother living in midtown Manhattan, and a goat hailing from Northern Vermont…' As soon as the curd touched my tongue and its smoky sweet flavour hit my taste buds, I nearly puked.
Allowing the public to taste and eat these cheeses before revealing that it included one of the 'most natural foods in the world' was an effective strategy to question the normalcy embedded in culturally accepted food practices. The mouth of the public was convinced by a visual trompe l’oeil to open up and take in, following Simms, the 'body of a (m)other [who] gives [her]self', although in this case no longer as a liquid medium but coagulated alongside the milk of (an)other mother, a non-human female.20
Simun triggered abjection and disgust in the public as these notions help to raise awareness of the commodification of non-humans and their milk, and to question the ethics behind contemporary food practices and trends, where sustainability is often the main issue. For example, Simun explained in an interview with Caruth that human cheese served to question the consumption of local products, and to emphasise that human cheese and breast milk could push the notion of eating well further down the food chain:21
If you’re really going to try to eat organic, natural and local, […] there is nothing more local or natural than human cheese. New York has 8 million people and not one cow, so the mammals in your midst are human.
Her statement, however, raised numerous criticisms, including the possible consequences of thinking of breast milk as a product that, if it is massively consumed, could lead to the commodification of those who produce it. This would further objectify women’s bodies and insert them into a logic of economic exchange, similar to what non-humans experience. I suggest that to think of breast milk within this logic, it would be necessary to assume that it is no longer considered an abject food, and that its consumption by adults is socially accepted and no longer a taboo.
The maternal body and its fluids are ambivalent in terms of acceptance and rejection. On the one hand, breast milk is considered a pure and natural food, and its consumption is endorsed by medical discourses and advocates of breastfeeding.22 On the other hand, even if feminists, food scholars, and ecofeminists acknowledge the benefits for mothers and newborns in terms of nutrition and its positive psychological and social impact, they also address the problems experienced by mothers when breastfeeding, and mainly when it is done in public.23 Women have to deal with the constant scrutiny and judging of the male gaze and the patriarchal logic that only accepts seeing the uncovered sexualised breast. The maternal one, on the contrary, cannot be flashed out. Public breastfeeding is regulated differently between countries and cultures, some of which do not accept publicly feeding unless it is performed discreetly.24 Here, I am refering to the containment of the maternal breast and the 'necessity' of covering it up. If this logic is disturbed, it gives place to discriminatory practices, social judgements, rejection, and isolation of breastfeeding mothers by subjects who feel uneasy watching the exposed breast, often when the nipple is uncovered.
During Simun’s installation a video work showed one of the donors pumping—or expressing—her milk. Unlike how she would express milk at home, the donor performs the task while standing up. She wears black leggings and her chest is partly naked, only covered by a nursing bra. The woman begins to express her milk while the viewer hears her voice describing the experience of breastfeeding as an accomplishment. She further explains this is the direct result of her corporeality in producing milk to feed her child, which results in healthy growth.25 Her statements might not be as shocking to the public as her image showing the simultaneous pumping of exposed breasts and the close resemblance to farming, specifically the milk industry. At points the camera zooms in and the video brings the viewer close to her nipple, which is being pumped by a machine designed specifically to mimic the suckling of an infant. The milk slowly leaks into a container and is transformed into cheese in the following sequence.
The scene is somewhat awkward. Simun chose to turn the intimate and domestic act of pumping milk into a scene that evokes a minimalistic but rather medicalised environment with a high degree of hygiene and cleanliness. The only three things in the scene are a metallic table, a hospital-grade milk pump, and the woman/donor. The sequence cuts after the milk is pumped and Simun then appears, presenting the steps that occur in the transformation of milk into cheese. The sequence showing this process, however, evokes two different spaces: a domestic kitchen and a scientific laboratory. The latter is emphasised by Simun’s dress code and how she performs; she wears casual clothes and a kitchen apron, but she uses lab equipment such as flasks, test tubes, rubber gloves, and goggles for ''cooking'' utensils. Furthermore, Simun’s body language displays a scientific attitude, conveying, to some degree, an empirical approach in showing the viewers each step at a time.
In this video, the maternal breast is shown in its entirety, allowing the viewer to observe where milk comes from. Simun presents an image that defies patriarchal logic by uncovering the breast but also by signalling that breasts are not sexualised organs. The public is forced to focus their attention on the oft-dismissed experience of expressing milk, a practice which plays a key role in the embodied experience of breastfeeding, all while eating one of the cheese amuse-bouches.
Breast milk and corporeal hospitality
The Lady Cheese Shop refers to motherhood and breastfeeding following an embodied feminist approach in order to uncover the maternal body from the imposed veiling that prevails to this day. This installation aims to release women’s bodies from the exacerbated sexualised gaze used in visual media, and to reflect upon the taboo towards the naked maternal body and its leaking fluids. Simun’s practice avoids romanticising or diminishing women by dislocating them from the logic that posits the bearing of a child and nurturing as a natural process or responsibility and/or duty of women.26
Within this artwork the maternal body is at the centre of the stage without any cover up. It follows the practice of women artists from the 1960s and 1970s that represented, presented or portrayed the female body with clear reference to feminist theories of embodiment.27 Mary Kelley’s Post-Partum Document (1973–79) is, for example, one of the most representative artworks for feminist and women artists dealing with motherhood. Kelley’s piece counteracted the visual and cultural conventions by bringing the pregnant female body to the fore, as well as taking into account the experiences of mothers.28 In The Lady Cheese Shop, however, the female body, specifically that of the mother, is emphasised as an active body as one with agency; thus, without their participation, Simun would not have been able to create cheese and offer it to others.29
By taking inspiration from practices in the hospitality industry, Simun relates women and the maternal with the notion of hospitality beyond the mere performance as waitress. She presents—in a more hospitable manner—a foodstuff that disrupts the logic of maternal hospitality and of the maternal body because it is eaten by an(other) that is not a newborn or infant. Her piece is adamant that the maternal body is not just a philosophical trope by which women fall into oblivion; rather, it is also the active participation of women and their corporealities that reframe the understanding of what maternal hospitality implies. The Lady Cheese Shop therefore enables a re-evaluation, integration, and reframing of the maternal into hospitality discourse.30 It goes beyond the assumption of maternity as something natural or given for granted, and beyond the mere assumption of women as the 'material ground of hospitality', as hospitality narratives portray.31 The artwork highlights women as subjects with agency, and who engage in ethical relationships with/to the other; at the same time, it proposes thinking of hospitality as more than only 'giv[ing] time so that others have time for consciousness, labour and hospitality'.32
The Lady Cheese Shop shows breast milk as a versatile product with the potential to transform into cheese, even if its consumption appears to be inadequate or discomforting for some. The production and consumption of human cheese is presented by Simun as a means to question the normalcy embedded in consuming non-human milk, in comparison to the ambivalent attitudes towards breast milk—of acceptance and rejection. Simun focuses on the extensively explored topics of breastfeeding and breast milk that scholars have repeatedly discussed, particularly feminists, in order to examine the maternal body in close relationship to food practices. Simun therefore follows the continuous efforts of women artists to put breastfeeding centre stage of their practices.33 Her installation creates the possibility of thinking about breast milk and breastfeeding through the notion of hospitality because, as I suggest, they are presented as space and matter for others.
Human cheese dislocates women’s bodies from the notions of allocation and becoming, and portrays it as an act of hospitality, entailing 'an active gesture of welcoming, greeting, sheltering, and […] nourishing' which, in this particular case, takes shape as a continual corporeal relationship of commensality.34 However, this does not necessarily imply reciprocity or recognition by the participants. The Lady Cheese Shop focuses our attention on mothers and their bodies as active participants in the making of human breast milk cheese. The direct intervention of women helps question if breastfeeding is a unilateral relationship, or if in fact, breast milk opens the possibility of offering hospitality to others.35 Here, the maternal body acts as space and matter that gives place to inter-corporeal ethical relationships as defined by Rosalyn Diprose. For Diprose corporeal generosity, advocates 'ways to foster social relations that generate rather than close off sexual, cultural, and stylistic differences'.36 Breastfeeding, in this sense, dislocates mothers from the assumption that posits them as selfless and sacrificial providers of corporeal substances to satisfy the needs of the growing infant.
Breast milk is one of the foodstuffs to which most humans can relate: for some, it was their first food; others have experienced breastfeeding (or are in the process of doing so); and most have witnessed the moment when a mother breastfeeds her child, either in public or private. Within literature, breast milk is addressed as the 'most natural food in the world' or as 'white gold', a term which reflects, to some extent, the amount of energy and labour that feeding another human requires.37 Producing breast milk is a process influenced by a continual relationship between the inside and outside of the maternal body: hormonal levels before and after childbirth trigger its production, although the amount of milk increases or decreases in relationship to its consumption.
Simun opted to purchase breast milk and/or ask for donations via the internet. The cheese-making process was documented, or rather exemplified, in a video that was screened while the pop-up shop was open; the film also included the mother-donor giving her opinion about breastfeeding and the Human Cheese project. She mentions the reasons that led her to participate, including curiosity, overproduction of milk, and an altruistic desire to volunteer.
Fig.3. Miriam Simun. The Lady Cheese Shop, 2011 Making human cheese
Still from video available at: http://www.miriamsimun.com/hum...
The decision of the woman donor shows that giving away surplus milk is a gift to others, including mothers unable to breastfeed and newborns in need of milk, or in this case as a gift bestowed to Simun. Put another way, the gifting of milk shows how motherhood, as Judith Still proposes, is a 'choice to share with an other'.38 Giving away the surplus milk to a breast milk bank might not be suitable, as the woman donor explained, because these institutions establish a series of restrictions and regulations that potential donors need to follow if they want their milk to be received, stored, and distributed.39 These guidelines follow a discourse of power that subsume women’s bodies to policies which do not give them full sovereignty over their own body, for example by limiting what they can eat. In this sense, the donation of breast milk, I suggest, is a choice which “empowers mothers”, following the discourse of Van Esterik and Glenda Wall, it is a choice which can also be considered as a gift to others.40 Further giving women the opportunity to control, to a certain extent, what they do with the surplus milk,.
The donated milk further highlights wet nursing and the maternal as an active act rather than a 'passive condition', emphasising that motherhood is, as Irigaray notes, a state of life in which the female subject has agency over her own body.41 The decision to bestow corporeal fluids to unknown others is a more generous and hospitable approach of gift-giving matter and space for the other.
Breast milk cheese dislocates the maternal body from the idea of maternal hospitality as the natural bearing of an-other inside the self, or from the idealistic view of the mother as giver and feeder. The donor mother who participated in The Lady Cheese Shop gave her corporeal fluids to Simun, but was not forced to do so. Neither Simun nor the public who attended the installation were going to starve if they did not consume the milk (cheese). The donor was not following a 'maternal' gesture of feeding the other but performing an act of corporeal maternal hospitality. The surplus milk was no longer useful for her child because his/her requirements are covered. However, giving away the excess benefits her bodily function as she acted in accordance with 'an inherent desire to volunteer'. In other words, by positioning herself within a logic of gift-giving of maternal fluids, she performed an ethical response to the other.
The Lady Cheese Shop makes evident the taboo embedded in public breastfeeding and the consumption of breast milk by adults. Simun triggers disgust in the viewer by showing a lactating woman expressing her milk, digust not only because her videowork shows breasts distanced from the assumptions of them as sexual organs, but also because this practice uses the technologies used for 'milking' non-human females. By doing this, the artist intended to highlight that even locally sourced foods are not immune to ethical debate. The attention of the public was directed to the consumption, objectification, and commodification of human and non-human bodies and their corporeal fluids. In a similar vein to non-human females, the maternal-human-lactating body can be subjected to industrialised production and mass consumption that de-humanises and further objectifies the female body; however, for this to happen, it would be necessary to overcome the reasoning that posits the 'lactating breast [and] breast milk […] as disgusting'.42 Discomfort around consuming breast milk comes from the ambivalence of the milk: on the one hand, it is a corporeal fluid considered abject because it reminds us of the corporeal proximity to the (m)other, as with other female fluids such as menstrual blood, even if through this fluid, the mother introduced us to our first meal. On the other hand, milk makes us realise our bond and relationship to other animals. Producing milk and breastfeeding are characteristics shared with non-humans, specifically with female mammals. Although it is worth noting that non-human milk is more accepted for human consumption - drinking or eating cow’s milk is not considered as disgusting as consuming human breast milk. The milk from our own species is the one which causes us disgust, especially if we consume milk that is not produced by our own mothers.
The human cheese served during Simun’s performance emphasises the doubts and uncertainty regarding the production and commodification of breast milk which sparked thoughts among the public, as they envisioned the possibility of 'farming' lactating women. Similar to other female animals, women are susceptible—once again—to being 'oppressed by their femaleness [and subjected to becoming] surrogate wetnurses' because their milk supply is seen as an adventurous and innovative “sustainable” food trend.43
Overall, The Lady Cheese Shop is an artistic practice that shows how corporeal hospitality can be performed as a collaborative venture between individuals, in this case between the public, the artist, and the mothers who gave their milk. It is a relationship, however, that cannot be merely viewed as an exchange or gifting of food: it becomes more complex by the time the bodies of human and non-humans come into play. The production of these hybrid human and non-human milk cheeses encompasses another level of hospitality, one which further emphasises the (maternal) body and its fluids as space and matter for others that are not only infants or the individuals who partake in Simun’s performance. It highlights the importance of acknowledging that our meals are, after all, the result of the cohabitation between species.44
End Notes
Go to footnote reference 1.Richard Fleischer, Soylent Green. (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), 1973).
Go to footnote reference 2.César Martínez, ‘Comeos los unos a los otros’, César Martínez; Mariana Meneses Romero, ‘Eating Latin America: César Martínez “sculptocooked” bodies’, Street Signs, Vol. 2015, no. The Latin America Edition, (11-13) accessed online 10 July 2015.
Go to footnote reference 3.Miriam Simun, ‘Human Cheese’, in Eben Kirksey ed., The Multispecies Salon, Durham: Duke University Press, 2014, 135–44 (133).
Go to footnote reference 4.Richard Adams, ‘Breast Milk Cheese on the Menu in New York’, The Guardian (United Kingdom, 9 March 2010), Online edition, section Food & drink accessed online 13 August 2013 ; The Telegraph, ‘Breast Milk Ice Cream Banned from London Shop’, The Telegraph (United Kingdom, 3 January 2011), Online edition, section How about that? accessed online 13 August 2013 ; Khushbu Shah, ‘Oh Great, Breast Milk Ice Cream Is Back’, Eater, 2015 accessed online 13 June 2015.
Go to footnote reference 5.Miriam Simun, ‘The Human Cheese Project at Michael Mut Gallery’, Miriam Simun, 2011.
Go to footnote reference 6.Miriam Simun Presents at the 2013 Creative Capital Artist Retreat, 2013 accessed online 2 February 2016.
Go to footnote reference 7.Simun, ‘The Lady Cheese Shop’; Danielle Gould, ‘Miriam Simun On Human Cheese, Biotechnology, & Sustainable Food’, Food Tech Connect, 2011 accessed online 13 August 2013.
Go to footnote reference 8.Simun, ‘Human Cheese’.
Go to footnote reference 9.Heather Paxton, ‘Post-Pasteurian Cultures: The Microbiopolitics of Raw-Milk Cheese in the United States’, Cultural Anthropology, 23.1 (2008), 15–47.
Go to footnote reference 10.Simun, ‘Human Cheese’, 138.
Go to footnote reference 11.Patrick F. Fox and others, Fundamentals of Cheese Science, ed. by Patrick F. Fox. Maryland: Aspen Publishers, 2000.
Go to footnote reference 12.Miriam Simun, The Lady Cheese Shop: Human Breast Milk Cheese on Display, 2011 accessed online 13 August 2013 <>
Go to footnote reference 13.Rosemary Betterton, An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists, and the Body, Visual Studies – Women’s Studies. London: Routledge 1996, 133.
Go to footnote reference 14.Luce Irigaray and Carolyn Burke, An Ethics of Sexual Difference. London: Athlone Press 1993, 203; Betterton, 159; Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, European Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press 1982.
Go to footnote reference 15.Terroir is defined as the “complete natural environment in which a particular wine is produced, including factors such as the soil, topography, and climate”. Oxford Dictionaries, ‘Terroir’, Oxford Dictionary (Oxford University Press) accessed online 21 February 2016 ; Institut National de LÓrigine et de la Qualité, ‘Terroir et Apellation D’origine’, Institut National de L’Origine et de La Qualité, 2016 accessed online 21 February 2016.
Go to footnote reference 16.I suggest here that the cheese to which she refers matches some of the statements made by the mother donor shown in the video, who describes her diet in a similar fashion and also emphasises her preference for consuming gorgonzola, a blue cheese. Miriam Simun presents at the 2013 Creative Capital Artist Retreat.
Go to footnote reference 17.Bonnie Hulkower, ‘Would You Eat Human Cheese? Artist Serves Breast Milk Cheese In East Village Gallery’, Tree Hugger, 2011 accessed online 13 August 2011.
Go to footnote reference 18.Hulkower.
Go to footnote reference 19.It is worth noting that Caruth mentions a type of cheese completely different from those tasted by Hulkower, but she still refers to the donor living in Midtown, New York. Nicole J. Caruth, ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’, Gastro-Vision, 2011 accessed online 13 August 2013.
Go to footnote reference 20.Eva-Maria Simms, ‘Milk and Flesh: A Phenomenological Reflection on Infancy and Coexistence’, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 32.1 (2001), 22–40 (p. 30).
Go to footnote reference 21.Caruth, ‘Out of the Mouths of Babes’; Simun, ‘Human Cheese’.
Go to footnote reference 22.Cindy A. Stearns, ‘Breastfeeding and the Good Maternal Body’, Gender & Society, 13.3 (1999), 308–25 (309).
Go to footnote reference 23.Greta Gaard, ‘Toward a Feminist Postcolonial Milk Studies’, American Quarterly, 65.3 (2013), 595–618; Pam Carter, Feminism, Breasts and Breast Feeding. New York: St. Martin’s Press 1995.
Go to footnote reference 24.There is a whole market for discreet breastfeeding clothing/covers for example http://www.daisybabyshop.co.uk...
Go to footnote reference 25.Miriam Simun presents at the 2013 Creative Capital Artist Retreat.
Go to footnote reference 26.Michelle Boulous Walker, Philosophy and the Maternal Body: Reading Silence. London and New York: Taylor & Francis 2002, 3–7.
Go to footnote reference 27.Betterton, An Intimate Distance; Tal Dekel, Gendered: Art and Feminist Theory. United Kingdom: Cambridge Scholars Publisher 2013.
Go to footnote reference 28.Andrea Liss, Feminist Art and the Maternal. United States of America: University of Minnesota Press 2009, 30.
Go to footnote reference 29.I am referring to agency considering that this artwork is a social act which has an impact on others, despite the structural constraints it encountered within the social and cultural structures. Maja Mikula, Key Concepts in Cultural Studies, Palgrave Key Concepts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2008, 4.
Go to footnote reference 30.Judith Still, Derrida and Hospitality: Theory and Practice. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press 2010; Rosalyn Diprose, Corporeal Generosity: On Giving With Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas, SUNY Series in Gender Theory. New York: State University of New York Press 2002; Irina Aristarkhova, Hospitality of the Matrix: Philosophy, Biomedicine, and Culture. New York: Columbia University Press 2012; Irina Aristarkhova, ‘Hospitality and the Maternal’, Hypatia, 27.1 (2012), 163–81; Myra J. Hird, ‘The Corporeal Generosity of Maternity’, Body & Society, 13.1 (2007), 1–20.
Go to footnote reference 31.Still, Derrida and Hospitality, 122.
Go to footnote reference 32.Rosalyn Diprose, ‘Women’s Bodies Between National Hospitality and Domestic Biopolitics’, Paragraph, 32.1 (2009), 69–86 (73).
Go to footnote reference 33.Natalie Loveless’ project and exhibition “New Maternalisms” reunited female artists whose practices bring attention to the “status of motherhood in contemporary art”. Some of the artists exhibiting dealt with breastfeeding and breast milk. See Natalie Loveless, ‘New Maternalisms Curated by Natalie Loveless’ (FADO Performance Art Centre, 2014), 5–9 accessed online 24 July 2014.
Go to footnote reference 34.Aristarkhova, Hospitality of the Matrix, 45.
Go to footnote reference 35.Hird, ‘The Corporeal Generosity of Maternity’, 6–7; Genevieve Vaughan, ‘Othering, Co-Munication, and the Gifts of Language’, in The Enigma of Gift and Sacrifice, ed. by E. Wyschogrod, J. J. Goux, and E. Boynton. New York: Fordham University Press 2002, 91–112 (92).
Go to footnote reference 36.Diprose, Corporeal Generosity: On Giving With Nietzsche, Merleau-Ponty, and Levinas, 15.
Go to footnote reference 37.The term “white gold” is usually employed by breastfeeding advocates. Simun, ‘Human Cheese’.
Go to footnote reference 38.Still, Derrida and Hospitality, 128.
Go to footnote reference 39.J. Kim and S. Unger, ‘Human Milk Banking’, Paediatrics & Child Health, 15.9 (2010), 595–98 (595–98).
Go to footnote reference 40.Glenda Wall, ‘Moral Constructions of Motherhood in Breastfeeding Discourse’, Gender & Society, 15.4 (2001), 592–610 (593); Gaard, ‘Toward a Feminist Postcolonial Milk Studies’, 559.
Go to footnote reference 41.Still, Derrida and Hospitality, 127.
Go to footnote reference 42.Tuvel, ‘Exposing the Breast: The Animal and the Abject in American Attitudes Toward Breastfeeding’, in Coming to Life Philosophies of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering, ed. by Sarah LaChance Adams and Caroline R Lundquist. New York: Fordham University Press 2013, 263–82 (269).
Go to footnote reference 43.Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat. New York: Continuum 1990, 21; Gould, ‘Miriam Simun On Human Cheese, Biotechnology, & Sustainable Food’.
Go to footnote reference 44.Simun, ‘Human Cheese’, 135; Donna Haraway, The Companion Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness, Prickly Paradigm Press 2007.
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Mariana Meneses Romero's current research focuses on the relationship between food and contemporary art as a critical discourse of hospitality. Mariana was UK Research Associate for the Delfina Foundation residency program “The Politics of Food” (2014). She has previously taught B.A. courses at Goldsmiths and at CESSA Universidad (Mexico). She has worked as freelance curator and her research interests include the areas of food studies, culinary diplomacy, gastropolitics, philosophy, and feminism.