Breast milk ice-cream: the taste test

I'm in Ice-creamists, an ice-cream parlour in London that's done out like a sex shop from the 80s, and Matt O'Connor, the founder, is talking me through his new dessert. It contains milk from a human. Breast milk, you might call it. "I'm challenging the preconceptions we have about food, about farming . . ." He takes a moment, it's either consideration or buildup: "About ice-cream!"

Hmm. When someone says breast milk ice-cream and we all rear away in horror, the problem is not, I think, that it has disturbed our views on ice-cream.

As a mother and a restaurant critic, the idea repulses me. I will concede that perhaps milk differs from one breast to another, but if you imagine some tepid water, infused with fat, garlic and red wine, you're somewhere close. O'Connor has 15 breast-milk suppliers, but a further 35 have signed up since he introduced the product. They pump at home and courier it over, like regular milk, except they are paid £15 for 10 fluid ounces. Don't be bedazzled by the use of an unfamiliar metric. This is £30 a pint. So one scoop of Baby Gaga (so called to sound a little bit fun) is £14.99. But if you're looking for a cash cow, ladies, you are not it. Regular breasts are lucky to yield one fluid ounce before they need a long break and a Mars bar.  

O'Connor tells me the proportions are two-thirds breast-milk, one third cream, with vanilla and sugar on top: I strongly suspect it's more like 50:50. So what does it actually taste like? At first, regular vanilla ice-cream, until the mouth-coating back taste kicks in – like a thin, more goatish, dairy.

In summary: at first I liked it; then I didn't mind it; then I hated it; then I wanted to be sick. Nice parlour, though.