ARTISAN FOOD OF SOUTHERN VERMONT
The Taste of Southern Vermont Is Distinctly Artisan and Lovingly Homegrown
by Anita Rafael
Maple syrup, it says on the brochures, is Vermont’s official flavor! True enough – after all who could argue that the Green Mountain State’s climate isn’t ideal for tsunamis of sap to flow every March? However, with a multitude of small organic farms plus many artisan cheese makers, bakers, specialty food producers and farmer’s markets, the true taste test of Southern Vermont just might be a year-round smorgasbord of homegrown flavors and sophisticated eating.
The word “artisan” is suddenly popping up on everything from bread wrappers to salad dressing labels. Shoppers see it on baskets of fresh tomatoes, on jars of apple chutney and on packets of ground spices. The implication is that good food is an art form; it is meant to specify that certain foods are “crafted” by hand or made using traditional recipes. However, it takes a lot more than a folksy looking label to be able to call a food product artisan. To be legitimate, the food must make a statement about where it comes from and who grows or produces it.Such a statement is loud and clear in the cheeses produced at Peaked Mountain Farm in Townshend. On a road that winds up a hillside above the village center, Bob and Ann Works and their helpers annually produce about 1,500 pounds raw sheep milk cheeses, as well as cow and mixed milk varieties. Because their sheep graze on wild grasses, including plants such as wild mint and thyme in the meadows, their feta, Camembert and tomme cheeses cannot help but have the flavor of Vermont in every bite. Rather than blending particular nuances out of the finished product to produce something “standard,” artisan cheese makers like the Works commit to the opposite. They strive to identify and enhance the uniqueness of their product, to make it taste like nothing else but what it is – that’s what makes it artisan. A subtle suggestion of what winemakers refer to as terroir is now also the sacred mantra of specialty food farms like this one.The late Henry Tewksbury, who celebrated Vermont’s “land-to-cheese” continuum in his book The Cheeses of Vermont, described Peaked Mountain’s Camembert as having a “mouth-puckering tang.” Their cheeses and other artisan foods are available at the farm, as well as at the Brattleboro Co-op and other co-ops, at the Shelburne Supermarket, or by mail order.
By the way, if you head that way to tour the farm’s cheese room and then drive home on the back road, don’t be surprised to see 50 or 60 buffalo grazing a few fields over at Carl and Eloise Steiner’s East Hill Bison Farm. Their packaged cuts of inspected, low-fat, low-cholesterol meat are sold at the farmhouse. Buffalo entrees are also on the menu at some local eateries, including Townshends’s Dam Diner on Route 30. Sticking to the state’s illustrious “Cheese Trail,” a tourism brainchild of the Vermont Cheese Council, leads hungry travelers to five more cheese makers situated in the southeastern corner of the state. Look at the map to find Vermont Shepherd at the Major Farm on Patch Road in Putney. Cheese makers David and Cindy Major are credited with jump-starting widespread appreciation for specialty sheep’s milk cheeses made in Vermont over a decade ago. Even though the 250-acre farm ships thousands pounds annually, the product is still considered artisan because there is a limited production. That’s the key: it’s made in small batches of 10 or 20 wheels, and given “love and attention” every single day throughout the entire 3 to 6 month aging process.
Patience is a common ingredient in all artisan products. If you have never tasted their signature cheese, expect to experience a rich creamy texture with an earthy flavor. No matter where you buy Major Farm’s Vermont Shepherd – in local stores or in California, Michigan or Tennessee - eventually, it, too, will be something your memory will hold onto forever as “tasting like Vermont.”
Few foods in Southern Vermont are more convincingly artisan than bread made by hand. Few bakers are as dedicated to the creative potential of each and every loaf as those at the spiritual community living at the 120-acre Basin Farm on Basin Farm Road in Bellows Falls. Typically, breadbaking starts with “preheat oven.” Their recipe starts months before in the farm’s certified organic fields. They sow about 5 acres of organic spelt annually. They do the tilling, watering, weeding and harvesting of the grain, and some 1,600 bushels is eventually ground into flour. For James Bergeron, one of the bakers in the group, the daily bread making is not just “the farm lifestyle.” To him, mixing, kneading, proofing and baking every loaf of bread is ultimately symbolic of what agriculture is all about. There is no disconnect between who the Basin Farm bakers are and the hearty breads they sell, which is exactly what makes these loaves artisan by definition. Their bread – everything from plain spelt to caraway seed or calamata olive flavors – is sold at the weekly Bellow Falls Farmer’s Market, at Brattleboro’s Wednesday Farmer’s Market and at their new bakery, the Common Loaf on Main Street in Brattleboro.There is no better explanation of “eating artisan” than putting a meal on the table that contains part of a family’s history and many of their traditions as well. Consider for example, something as commonplace as the small signs along the roadside that say “Fresh Eggs” or “Grass Fed Beef” like those on Route 100 at the foot of Newell Hill Road in West Wardsboro. It may not be immediately apparent to a passer-by, but, in Southern Vermont, signs like that often mean that the farm families who sell those products still work the land that has been handed down for generations. In the case of the Newell Farm, make that six generations. The farm grazes a couple dozen beef cattle each season and raises several hogs. More than 100 free-range chickens enjoy the spectacular views from the hilltop property as well. Unlike typical beef which is largely corn-fed and therefore has the same generic flavor no matter where its bought, beef sold at the Newell Farm tastes unmistakably like the Newell Farm, and it’s the same as it tasted a century ago. No one needs a consumer information label to tell them that the farm’s eggs are different than commercially produced eggs because anyone can see at a glance that the plump yolks are the sunniest yellow.All the heritage that’s in the Newell’s land is in the food that the family has produced for themselves and their neighbors since the 1800s. Another tidbit about the Newell’s farm products: most of their acreage is sugarbush, so if you truly believe that the official flavor of Vermont is maple, then, you should also know there is no more authentic elixir of that than the maple syrup Brent and Lorraine Newell produce. Newell Farm products are sold at the farm itself.
The nationally-recognized Vermont Specialty Foods Association, headquarted in Rutland, Vermont, tallies that the state‘s 300 specialty food producers annually generate more than $700 million in sales. With more people finding viable ways of staying close to the land, a century-old lament about Vermont’s “lost agriculture” is gradually being transformed into a chorus of praise for the state’s smartest, and in many instances, bravest, new entrepreneurs.Buying ingredients that are both local and organic whenever she can, chef Sharon Myers runs a successful business making artisan marmelades and chutneys in her professional home kitchen in Brattleboro. Purple Chef LLC began production in 2006 with a collection of original recipes Myers used for more than 20 years on her own table and in her award-winning catering business. She makes everything by hand in small batches several times a week from ingedients she herself has selected, inspected and taste-tested.Food that consumers can trust, whether it ranks as a daily staple or a delicacy with a cross-cultural heritage, is another fundamental way to describe specialty foods. It is the philosphy behind Myers products and it is what motivates her to always add her personal touch to every jar. The way Myers see it, people ought to be able to taste the integrity in artisan products. Presently, the Purple Chef pantry includes seven sweet and savory products: Mango Chutney, Tomato Marmalade, Orange Marmalade, Apple Chutney, Jalapeno & Tomato Marmalade, Fire-Roasted Marma-Lava, and Orange Fennel Olives. The short list of where Purple Chef products are sold includes the Brattleboro Food Co-op; Clearbrook Farm, Shaftsbury; Grafton Village Cheese Co.; JK Adams, Dorset; Taylor Farms, Londonderry; Boccelli’s On The Canal, Bellows Falls, Whole Foods in Hadley, MA, and many other quality retail markets.Every day in Southern Vermont dawns on brighter future than ever before for organic farmers and independent, specialty food producers as more people realize that the basic element of enjoying good health is finding good food. They want food that goes directly from farm to kitchen; they want to sit down at the table to meals made from ingredients that were treated with nothing more than a quick trip in a pick-up truck.
As you travel from Weston to Wilmington, from Saxton’s River to Stratton discovering new foods, old farms and traditional purveyors, you’ll meet couples, families and friends who will share with you all their secrets about exactly what this piece of God’s country tastes like.
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