Good Food is Everybody's Business
Written with urban charm and a knife-sharp sense of humor, Uncle Dave’s Cow is a friendly and accessible guide to sourcing and eating local meat for parents, foodies, and everyone who wants to learn how to be a well-prepared consumer and cook through to the bone.
Farming north of the 48th parallel means short growing seasons and long winters. Raising meat animals rather than produce in the North means having products available for delivery almost year round. Yet when your nearest big market is 250 miles away, making winter deliveries can be hazardous.
Quick! What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the words “dairy cows?” Probably black and white cows in a grassy field in front of a red barn, right? That’s the image that every confinement dairy operation would like you to imagine, but very few cows are raised that way. Rick Adamski, Full Circle Farm, Seymour Wisconsin, is a grazer. No, he doesn’t eat grass; he milks about 90 cows that do.
Mel and Sue Brown, Amaltheia Organic Dairy, milk more than 200 goats and, in their small cheese plant, they turn out chevre, whole milk ricotta, and feta cheese. The original three flavors of Amaltheia’s chevre won American Cheese Society awards in 2004 and the whole milk ricotta was called “perfect” by the Society judges.
Last week, we heard Heidi’s story of the beginning of Wise Choice Farm; this week we celebrate the farm’s first anniversary.
Heidi Norman Wise and her husband John moved from Minneapolis to a small farm in rural Wisconsin to live their dream. Sometimes it’s better NOT to know what is coming…
Sue Brown, cheese maker, goat herder, and owner with her husband Mel of Amaltheia Dairy in Belgrade MT, describes how her farm and dairy are “closing the circle” by finding ways to profit from waste products like whey and manure. Sue answers the “unspoken” question: What to do with those male baby goats since they aren’t likely to earn their keep?
Over the last 70 years, the beef industry has changed considerably, evolving into an intense, industrial enterprise designed to put as much weight on as many cattle as fast as possible and get the resulting meat to market as quickly as possible. In response to the damaging impact of feedlot production, more and more farmers and ranchers are choosing to return to – and improve upon – traditional methods of raising cattle on grass.
