So what is Donkey cheese? Is it any good?
Donkey cheese is called Pule, which means “foal” in Serbo-Croatian. It was brought to market for the first time in September 2012 at the annual cheese show in Frome, Somerset, England. Pule is the brainchild of Slobodan Simic. He supplies the milk from his donkeys to Stevo Marinkovic, a cheesemaker at Beocapra located in the Republic of Serbia. That is where the Donkey cheese is made.
Pule Donkey Cheese
Donkey cheese is new, rare and expensive. It is even more expensive than Moose cheese. It is the world’s most expensive cheese according to the World Record Academy website. Donkey cheese goes for $576 a pound (wholesale) and up to $2900 a pound (retail).
I first learned of Donkey cheese on Dec 10th when I came across the online article “Novak Djokovic is buying the world’s entire supply of donkey cheese” . I was intrigued.
Who is Novak Djokovic? He is the worlds #1 ATP ranked tennis player. He is … famous.
Novak Djokovic – photo from Google Images
The story of Novak buying up all the Donkey cheese was a great story and it quickly went viral around the world. That was a few weeks ago. Now the dust has settled, the excitement has passed and I have gathered the facts about Donkey Cheese.
Does Donkey Cheese really exist? – Yes.
Did Novak Djokovic buy it all? – No. In fact he bought NONE.
It was all hype, according to an article published by New York Times on December 19th. The Serbian producer of the Donkey Cheese had left a sample of his Pule cheese at a restaurant owned by Novak Djokovic in Belgrade. Evidently the message with the cheese sample was … If you want to buy it all, we’ll sell it to you. Through some genius(?) marketing, the proposal was twisted, exagerated and embellished into an international news story that Novak had bought it all. Not so. It was much ado about nothing. It did, however, launch a global awareness of the existence of Donkey Cheese.
Maybe there is some brain enhancing benefit to Donkey cheese. There is some brilliance in a Serbian Donkey farmer figuring out a way to get his cheese story all the way to Canada, in less than 90 days from launch, compliments of free media. If I get the chance, I’ll try the cheese. Maybe I can come up with a brilliant way to get the Serbians to read my blog.
The Canada Cheese Man 