(This article was originally published in the Lincoln Journal on June 14, 2012.)
By Alice Waugh
Lots of people drink milk every day, but most of them don’t see how it gets from cow to cup. Drumlin Farm staff rectified that situation for hundreds of visitors on Dairy Day last Saturday, which was both educational and udderly delicious.
The third annual Dairy Day in June (National Dairy Month) is one of Drumlin Farm’s periodic “theme days,” which include Woolapalooza earlier this spring. Visitors could watch a cow being milked, taste some freshly made yogurt cheese, and even make butter in a bottle. “We wanted to give people a chance to learn more about where milk comes from and the different ways you can use it to make other dairy products,” said visitor education coordinator Renata Pomponi.
In the barn, preschoolers and their parents clustered around Louise, a large black cow, to watch a milking demonstration by teacher/naturalist Pat Cochran. Louise ambled inside and made a beeline for the milking station, encouraged by children pointing the way—and also by a bucket of food including oats sweetened with molasses.
“We want them to come willingly to be milked, and this is a nice little treat for them,” Cochran said as Louise pushed aside the hay with her nose to get at the tasty tidbits underneath.
“She’s eating the dessert first,” one visitor observed.
As Cochran gently squeezed each of Louise’s four teats, a thin stream of milk zinged into the shiny metal pail as Louise munched happily. The milk didn’t accumulate very fast because hand-milking is a slow process; staff normally use a milking machine and then feed the milk to the pigs. Even though Drumlin can’t sell the milk for human consumption, the cows still have to be milked twice a day; after a cow gives birth, she can produce up to 10 gallons a day, said teacher/naturalist Danielle Fredericks.
Louise actually doesn’t have a whole lot of milk to give these days. She’s still nursing her one-year-old calf as well as another cow’s two-year-old calf who’s helping itself to her milk—and to top it off, Louise is due to have another calf in November. Two other cows at Drumlin Farm are also expecting—Jane in September and Tilly around the same time as Louise. “It’s going to be a busy fall,” Fredericks said.
In the spacious new Farm Life Center, visitors made their own butter in a matter of minutes—not with a wooden butter churn, but simply by shaking a glass jar partly filled with heavy cream. At first, the shaking yields what looked like whipped cream, but after a few more shakes, each jar contained a round yellow blob of sweet butter (the fat content of the cream) floating amid leftover liquid, which was nearly fat-free milk. They could then sample the butter, as well as the intermediate whipped cream, which made a very popular cracker topping when mixed with cinnamon and sugar.
“This is awesome. I never knew how to make butter,” said Eric Pressman of Needham, who was at Drumlin with his wife and two young children. “I think the kids could make this at our next Thanksgiving.”
Milk straight from the cow can be transformed into curds and whey as well as butter. Curds, also called yogurt cheese, are made by emptying yogurt into a cheesecloth bag hanging over a bowl and letting the liquid drain overnight. Whey, this protein-rich liquid drained from the curds, is often added to bread and other foods, explained teacher/naturalist Robin Stuart. Behind her on the stove, she heated milk that would become ricotta cheese after she curdled it with buttermilk, which is slightly acidic owing to its flavorful and digestion-friendly bacterial cultures.
Along with the fresh butter and sweetened cream were samples of three kinds of freshly made yogurt cheese made from cow milk, sheep milk and goat milk. Spread on a cracker with a sprinkling of chives or lemon thyme picked in Drumlin’s nearby garden made a snack that proved to be as tasty to humans as the oats and molasses was to Louise. On the way in and out, visitors could also get cups of what is perhaps the most popular dairy product of all—ice cream made by Erikson’s in Maynard.