WELL, I DO LIKE CAMEL HAIR JACKETS...

West Africans in Mauritania are hoping to start a new fad, camel cheese:

"If the Europeans buy that cheese, our milk production will skyrocket. We'll get the technology - better than the money - like the right medicines. Then our herds will really grow," says herder Tati Ould Mohamed, watching as an orange bucket filled with frothy milk.

But there's a problem because they can't sell it overseas yet. Why, you ask? Because it's not tested and pasteurized, you see. The herders don't meet government regulations! They have a sensible advocate, though:

Nancy Abeiderrahmane, the British founder of Tiviski, has waged a decades-long campaign to export the milk and cheese of camels - animals more associated with Bedouin herders than brie.

When Abeiderrahmane moved to Mauritania in 1970, many of the country's 2.9 million people lived as herdsmen, but were increasingly consuming imported milk and other processed foods.

"I thought it was absurd that they had all of these dairy animals and were importing all of this ultra-pasteurized milk," the 56-year-old Briton says. "I so missed fresh milk. And I love camel's milk; it's exquisite."

So, with $250,000, she launched her company in 1987. It started with packaged camel milk, then quickly branched into yogurt and creme fraiche.

"It all made perfect sense," Abeiderrahmane says.

Over the years, she grew intrigued by the idea of camel cheese.

Camel milk doesn't curdle naturally, making cheese production difficult. But by 1994, with the help of a French professor, Abeiderrahmane had developed a method for making camel cheese, which tastes similar to goat cheese, but spreads and looks more like brie or Camembert.

At first Abeiderrahmane had to get the EU to actually recognize that camel milk was, in fact, milk since EU regulations didn't actually state that the secretions of camels could be so recognized.

Sounds like good eatin' to me.