Raw What?

Many of the people who seek out raw dairy do so because they grew up on the stuff, either on a farm or in a rural area where people still got milk from their neighbors, or in a foreign country where raw milk is tolerated (the British royal family still drinks raw milk).

I encountered raw milk for the first time when one of my roommates started working for a produce co-op. She got a free gallon of raw milk every week, and the stuff befuddled me. Raw dairy? What? I snuck an experimental glass with one of my friends and was almost knocked flat. Holy heavy whipping cream, Batman! I didn't understand how anyone could drink the stuff. It was so rich I felt as though I might as well have eaten a stick of butter.

When I confessed my misadventure to my roommate, she explained that not only is raw milk not pasteurized, it's unhomogenized, meaning that all of the milk fat sits nicely on top. I didn't know any better, so I hadn't shaken the milk before I poured a glass. What I drank didn't just taste like pure cream, it was pure cream. Whoops. Chastised, I left other people's foodstuffs alone.