Road Trip: My Inner Maine With a couple of friends, I took off in the middle of last week to explore a part of Maine that tourists, unhappy souls, seldom see. Balfour Farm & Dairy is in the Somerset County town of Pittsfield, population around 4,000, and home to the erstwhile Central Maine Egg Festival, which is probably not as stellar an event as it was back when chickens were kings and chicken farms were ubiquitous in inland Maine. At Balfour Farm there are chickens, yes, and they lay beautiful eggs, but there are also pigs and cows and all of these animals are happy in the open air doing what animals are intended to do, pigs rolling in mud, cows grazing in grassy meadows, and chickens peckpeckpecking at bugs and roots and grit.
When I was a child I wanted to have a small farm with cows and pigs and chickens and all the other farm animals, especially horses. I don’t think my child brain had fully made the connection between raising farm animals and meat on the table. But, I think this is the way farms should be. I have a friend in Wisconsin, Inga Orth Witscher, who has a small farm in the northwest part of the state and who has six Jersey cows. She makes wonderful raw cheddar cheese from their milk. She’s also the host of Around the Farm Table on PBS Wisconsin. I support small farmers in every way I can. I only wish we had more local fisheries. There are a few here, but nothing like the abundance of the Maine coast.
I just bought a dozen of their eggs at the Portland Farmers Market this morning then came home to this post! Planning on making something with eggs and the fresh asparagus the market had also! Truly spring when you find local asparagus and rhubarb at the market. A rhubarb tea cake in the oven right now!
Good to hear mention of Jean Anderson's Portuguese - absolutely agree, terrific book! Since I collect bits and bobs of reading-matter, herewith from my archives: Sacheverell Sitwell, touring the upper reaches of the Douro in the 1950’s with his wife, went in search of a certain notorious cake prepared for the romeria of Sao Gonçalo, patron saint of the town of Amarante. “We chose a restaurant which was also a confectioner’s and looked at the cakes in the windows correctly labelled, as advertised in the guide-books, lerias, galhofas, papos de freira. On the way through the shop to the restaurant we asked for the special cakes made for the romeria, and is sad to say that even the name Sao Gonçalo aroused no response. But this is not say this is not a pretence on their part. Sao Gonçalo, in fact, is the patron saint of marriages, and every confectioner in Amarante sells special cakes baked in the form of a phallus which the young men and women give as presents to each other. It must be the most strange survival of pagan times in all Europe, yet little is known of it.”
When I was a child I wanted to have a small farm with cows and pigs and chickens and all the other farm animals, especially horses. I don’t think my child brain had fully made the connection between raising farm animals and meat on the table. But, I think this is the way farms should be. I have a friend in Wisconsin, Inga Orth Witscher, who has a small farm in the northwest part of the state and who has six Jersey cows. She makes wonderful raw cheddar cheese from their milk. She’s also the host of Around the Farm Table on PBS Wisconsin. I support small farmers in every way I can. I only wish we had more local fisheries. There are a few here, but nothing like the abundance of the Maine coast.
I just bought a dozen of their eggs at the Portland Farmers Market this morning then came home to this post! Planning on making something with eggs and the fresh asparagus the market had also! Truly spring when you find local asparagus and rhubarb at the market. A rhubarb tea cake in the oven right now!
Good to hear mention of Jean Anderson's Portuguese - absolutely agree, terrific book! Since I collect bits and bobs of reading-matter, herewith from my archives: Sacheverell Sitwell, touring the upper reaches of the Douro in the 1950’s with his wife, went in search of a certain notorious cake prepared for the romeria of Sao Gonçalo, patron saint of the town of Amarante. “We chose a restaurant which was also a confectioner’s and looked at the cakes in the windows correctly labelled, as advertised in the guide-books, lerias, galhofas, papos de freira. On the way through the shop to the restaurant we asked for the special cakes made for the romeria, and is sad to say that even the name Sao Gonçalo aroused no response. But this is not say this is not a pretence on their part. Sao Gonçalo, in fact, is the patron saint of marriages, and every confectioner in Amarante sells special cakes baked in the form of a phallus which the young men and women give as presents to each other. It must be the most strange survival of pagan times in all Europe, yet little is known of it.”
Maine is my happy place.
a beautiful one remembering a lovely day
Once again, nourishing words, Nancy. Makes me eager to come to Maine.
It looks like the egg festival starts on July 8. I'm coming up!
So want to go to an egg festival and a farm and everything else here!
Pittsfield is the home of the Maine Cheese Festival now! One day in September. I discovered Balfour Farm cheeses there last year.
Life, the way it should be.
xox