The Time Capsule | Roy Marshall

Times do change. When wife and I moved to this area 30-plus years ago, I had a milk cow. First impressions are important, and the cow made a good one. We do not know one ostkaka (Swedish cheesecake) from another. Our neighbors, though, did. They believed the top-drawer stuff was made with fresh, untreated milk. They no longer milked cows but once had, knew how the best ice cream and butter and ostkaka are made, and we quickly gained friends. There were times, as the holidays approached, that a car or two would pull in the drive at milking time just on the chance there’d be a little extra. It was given to fine people who repaid us time and again.

Fast forward to three weeks ago. Our son’s Jersey came fresh (had a calf). She produces about four times what her little one can consume. She’d normally have three or four bucket calves on her, but they’re a risk, and our son hasn’t found any he thinks are worth the $400-500 they’re bringing right now. He’s milking, tried to give it away, but the only people he found with an interest would have fed it to dogs or cats.

This reminded me of our Texas friends. Those in the neighborhood where we bought a home have grown so accustomed to eggs from a grocery store they would not accept those we offered to give them. Bob Chastain probably spoke for them all when he said he got his eggs from a carton, not a damn chicken.

There’s an irony here. Some of those, particularly the Texans, who patronize mega-producers are extreme animal lovers. We’ve gotten to know Ginger quite well. She tithes. The recipient is not a church, but PETA. In addition to the monthly check, she adopts animals based on pictures and internet descriptions. She has joined others in staging protests against egg-producing plants that keep thousands of chickens in cramped cages and gasses them when productivity begins to slip. Her group has targeted dairy farms, angry that calves are taken from their mothers at birth, put in confinement and force-fed for veal while the cows are given hormones and pushed to their capacity and beyond.

Because she feels this treatment is inhumane and is distressed by it, she buys eggs that are reputed to be “free range.” She declined, though, to accept those that had been in our barred rock hens a few hours earlier. She’d welcome the chance to buy hormone free, non-GMO milk, but it would be pointless to offer her some directly from the Jersey.

Chastain, I think, was right when he said consumers have been conditioned to believe that if this sort of thing doesn’t come from a plastic container it just isn’t to be trusted.

So I’ve been making cheese. My evening routine is to clear the table, tune in a baseball game and, in the span of three or four innings, turn out a batch of mozzarella, ricotta or queso blanco. These are the easy ones; milk, citric acid and vinegar and, probably because Jersey milk has so much cream, the end product is exceptional.

We’re overdoing the pizza and lasagne, though, and getting weary of stuffed pasta shells and cottage cheese. Feta is next and then, unless a couple of calves interfere, we’re going to try a recipe for brine-aged monk’s-cheese that supposedly dates to the eighth century. I’ve no idea what it’ll taste like, but the experience will be interesting.

Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.