When I lived in Lewistown, IL, I bought a goat to raise for milking. She turned out to be a hermaphrodite, and we sold her when we moved to Pekin.
In Delaware, I raised three Boers to eat, and the BBQ we had that fall is still talked about. Goats make wonderful eating, and if poor Val hadn't had to deal with goat escapees while I was in Minnesota, we might have repeated the effort the next year. Still might, when I retire. If I retire. For now, the fence has been moved, and now confines only the chickens.
Then a couple months ago I ran into the book Goat Song
, by Brad Kessler. After reading the preface, I had to read it to my wife and we could hardly put it down. Kessler is a fairly well-known novelist, and his wife is a professional photographer. Both are from NYC. They pulled up stakes, moved to Vermont, and started a goat farm, planning to sell cheese. The book is the story of their transition from the city to the farm. In the book I learned about chèvre, a basic, soft-ripened goat cheese, so of course we had to try it. The author waxed especially about cheese made from raw goat's milk as opposed to the pasteurized stuff. Back in the early part of the 20th century, when farmers had a problem with Brucellosis (milk fever), the FDA made regulations against selling raw milk products. Of course even now, with good sanitary practices on the farm, they haven't changed the regulations, so you won't find anything but pasteurized cheese and milk in your local grocery store. Which we tried, and it was okay.
Here's the reason raw milk and raw milk cheese is better: bacteria. Yes. You have more than ten times as many bacterial cells in your body than you have somatic (body) cells. If you got rid of your bacteria, you would die. Know how antibiotics can give you diarrhea? The medicine is killing your intestinal microflora and you can't digest properly. Non-pasteurized dairy products contain symbiotic bacteria that you don't get in the store-bought stuff. So I wanted to try some of the cheese that hadn't been sterilized.
Well. Recently I met a goat farmer! Who makes goat cheese! And he agreed to give me some chèvre that they make for their own consumption. Last Sunday I got a pint tub of creamy white soft cheese, not even ripened yet. It has a very mild flavor (read bland) that lends itself to having things added to it. You can mix local honey into it, or dill, or parsley, or even Old Bay, I suppose.
I had my first taste on some whole wheat bread with a slice of tomato on it. Wonderful. Subtly different from the grocery store stuff.
If you stop by before it's gone, I'll share some with you.
3 comments:
I've recently purchased some raw goat milk from a local family here. Tasted great! Kids really liked it too. I don't think they make cheese though. At $8 per gallon it was significantly cheaper than purchasing quarts of pasturized stuff in the store.
The lies our corporate leaders tell us! I am not fiond of goat cheese as it tastes too much like goat for me, but I was astonished to learn a few years ago it is illegal to sell raw milk.
I am equally astonished to find cannibalism referred to so casually. If I had ever eaten a Boer I would probably keep quiet about it, not least because I think of most South Africans I have met as being rather grizzled and outdoorsy and tanned. They don't look very appetizing, but perhaps they taste better than they look?
The laws vary from state to state, but yes, in many places it's illegal. An odd thought enters my mind: Do the laws banning the sale of raw milk specifically ban only milk from livestock?
Dad, I'm halfway through "Goat Song". I'm somewhat bothered that the difficult "queen" goat is named Hannah. Other than that it's an interesting book so far. The author seems saturated with a wide variety of knowledge.
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