December 2023

Meadow Creek Dairy

Essays by Andy Fusia & Chris Loughran

About Meadow Creek

Meadow Creek Dairy began as a seasonal grass dairy in Galax, Virginia 35 years ago. They were milking a herd of 80 cows with 140 acres of land for grazing during the appropriate months of March to December. Owners and married couple Helen and Rick Feete both worked in conventional confinement dairies prior to this, witnessing first-hand precisely what they did not want to be with their own operation. Their vision of cows on pasture 365 days a year, grass-fed, and rotationally grazed was a pretty radical stance to take in a sea of conventional dairies in the 80’s. Besides being worse for the environment and welfare of the animals, conventional dairying also comes with increased costs of regular purchasing corn silage for feed and additional equipment to house the animals, but more on that later. In 1998 they decided their high quality milk could be utilized in farmstead cheese production.

In the early years Helen and Rick took trips to New Zealand, Italy, France, and Ireland for inspiration. They found methods of farming and cheesemaking not popular in the US, but that could be more sustainable and yield a better end result. Rick and their son Jim work the land without pesticides or herbicides, maintaining biodiversity in the soil and pasture. Their pastures are a mix of native grasses — orchard grass, fescue, and red clover — with some improved breeds such as ryegrass, white clover, plantain, and chicory. These are all perennials, since the goal is stable, deep-rooted pastures that go for years. “We never use herbicides; long term, you’re better off finding a way to outcompete those weeds! We do spot seed a few annuals for managing bare ground, mostly turnips, rape, and radishes.” their daughter Kat says.

25 years later and the Feete Family have clearly done something right. In the late 90s, there were not really many American Artisanal cheese makers, so the learning curve for Helen and Rick was quite steep. Yet despite the challenges, their cheeses have won countless international and American Cheese Society awards over the years. On my own anecdotal cheesemonger evidence, Meadow Creek cheeses are consistently remembered and asked for by name. This recognition speaks volumes considering that the average cheese buyer often has trouble describing to mongers what they are looking for or even what they like. Meadow Creek is also not making those typically crowd pleasing cheeses the American palate seems to prefer. There is plenty of earth and funk here.

Their operation has evolved many times over the years. From being a strictly liquid dairy, to making cheese in 1998, to being primarily a cheesemaker who sold off their excess milk by 2010, and finally suspending all commercial shipping of milk in 2019. Then, in 2020, the pandemic hit Meadow Creek hard. In the first few months their sales plummeted a catastrophic 93%. Most notably they had just been picked up by a grocery store chain for whom they expected to be filling consistent large orders. This grocer proceeded to drop them completely due to “not being able to sample during the pandemic”. With the cellars filling up they had to stop making cheese, dump milk down the drain, and sell off some of their herd. They are a closed herd, meaning they don’t buy any cattle, but raise their own replacements. Because of this, they are still in recovery. “The market can bounce back a lot faster than we can raise a new crop of heifers!”. By the end of the year, they were able to balance out their losses to about 35-40%. Still, this is a telling example of the hardships smaller producers face when a shake up in the supply chain occurs.

Despite these global supply chain setbacks, Meadow Creek should soon be back to their 2019 herd size and their cheese is as popular as ever. The lessons of Covid have taught them to be more cautious because you just never know what the future holds. It’s better to sell out than be left holding the bag on ammoniated Grayson wheels. As long as they’re making cheese I hope to be selling it. I hope you love them as much as I do!

On Sustainability

The one word mission statement that drives everything at Meadow Creek, sustainability, a concept that the United Nations Brundtland Commission, in 1987, defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”  In farming and cheesemaking, sustainability is a nobel mission full of hard work, as much as it is a business decision that puts the happiness and health of the land and livestock (and the quality of the product) above the company’s bottom line. We often talk about sustainability in environmental terms, but equally important components are the financial and cultural ones. Against the race to the bottom that drives the conventional dairy industry, small businesses such as Meadow Creek Dairy, are carving out an important niche for our future. 

Livestock products, including dairy, are often thought to be at odds with environmental sustainability, but this perception does not capture the whole truth. In a 2019 study conducted by General Mills and White Oak Pastures in Georgia, it was found that their methods of pasture grazed beef not only offset carbon emissions, but can even be a net carbon negative. The concept of regenerative grazing (also known as holistic planned grazing or holistic management) is rooted in the “law of the second bite”. Conventional grazing systems typically lead to overgrazing by allowing grazing animals to take a “second bite” of a plant before that plant has had time to recover from the first bite. This, combined with other factors, leads to degenerated land, leading to runoffs and water pollution and causing other long term damage to the environment. In carefully and well managed grazing, the land is allowed to rest for an optimal amount of time before the grazing animals are allowed to return to that spot. This allows the grasses to build up their root structure. The complex relationships and interactions between soil microbes, plant roots, and grazing animals allow for a net sequestration of carbon in the soil. It is clear that regenerative grazing is an environmentally sustainable practice. (Stop the War on Cows!)

Yet, the financial implications are heavy. A small farm committed to regenerative grazing must dedicate far more land to each animal, and as such their herds are smaller. In a world where conventional dairies may have herds as large as 10,000, it is an uphill battle for a small dairy farm to produce enough to survive – a reason many, such as Meadow Creek, have pivoted to value added products, such as cheese, where a potential for a higher return on investment still exists. (This fact also helps to explain the high price of artisan cheese). While many cheesemakers are driven by passion, it is also a potential path toward a secure financial future.

Talking about financial sustainability in an interview from 2006, owner Rick Feete said:

“…one of the legs of sustainability was, if (their cheese business) is not financially viable, I mean, the land value is so enormous now, what’s to stop the next generation from just selling the farm for development and cashing in on a million dollar piece of land, rather than slaving? If it’s not gonna be lucrative for them, then they’re not gonna do it. So the land will have a bunch of McMansions on it. So in order for the farm to be sustainable at all and to take that seriously, we have to know that somebody is gonna make some money here, and you don’t have to take vows of property in order to work on the land.”

Beyond the economic viability of a single regenerative farm lies another overlooked facet of sustainability, the cultural component. Are your norms, beliefs, and way of life appealing enough to survive through generations and spread organically to others? Meadow Creek addresses this (maybe not even intentionally) by participating in the Ohio Program, an agriculture-centric international exchange program run by Ohio State University. Almost every year since 2008 they have hosted between one and three international interns, their first two being from Panama and Nicaragua. These interns stay with Meadow Creek for the duration of their one year educational visa, gaining experience and learning the fine details of artisan farmstead cheesemaking. The most important thing they can take home with them is the perspective that preserving the microbiology of the land and closing the loop (recycling nutrients in wastes and using them for agricultural production) on as much as they can agriculturally is of the utmost importance for the health of current and future generations. In this way, the idea travels, spreads, lives.

In a system that rewards short sighted, corner cutting conventional factory farming, it is in a sense impossible for one farm to be sustainable on its own. It takes more than the environmentally-conscious farmer and cheesemaker to produce a sustainable product. It requires the active participation of the community to realize all three components of sustainability; environmental, financial, and cultural. Now, more than ever, it is important for consumers to embrace small family farms that practice sustainability. Yet another reason to Eat Artisan Cheese.

… and now onward to the cheeses!

Appalachian

Milk: unpasteurized cow
Rennet: animal
Age: 3-4 months
Ingredients: unpasteurized cow’s milk, salt, rennet, culture
Texture/profile: semi firm with sweet cream and mushroomy notes
Pairing idea: Tait Farm Apricot Butter

Meadow Creek’s original recipe, the first cheese they ever made, and a perfect cheese it is! In early November it even won a Super Gold (better than gold!) medal at the World Cheese Awards being held in Trondheim, Norway. Appalachian is truly emblematic of the namesake mountainous terroir. Grass and sweet cream, the building blocks of this cheese shine through when it hits your tongue. Inspired by natural rind raw cow’s milk cheeses of the Alps like the French Tomme de Savoie and Italian Toma Piemontese, but in no way out to copy the cheeses themselves. Instead it takes the more worthwhile pursuit of reflecting the land from which it comes as its legacy European counterparts do. This practice allows it to have a culinary watermark of sorts, only those flavors can come from those cows on that land.

For Appalachian’s production, the cows are milked daily, and the previous day’s milk is used for the cheese make. Milk is cultured, coagulated with rennet, and cut into curds. It can then be cooked at 107F for 20-30 minutes before they drain the curds and whey off into a vat. This temperature is low enough to maintain its status as raw, which allows greater depth of flavor and that so important reflection of terroir. The curd then sits under press plates for about ten minutes, causing it to form a solid mat, before they drain off the remaining whey and cut the curd into squares that will fit into their custom made stainless steel hoops. The hoops go into the press and under weights until mid-afternoon — this drains more whey yet, and causes the cheese to go from loose curd into the firm proto-cheese.

Once it hits the cellars, it is flipped once or twice a week to make sure the penicillium and geotrichum molds get enough oxygen. These molds give Appalachian its signature fluffy, velvety rind. Their caves are the perfect environment to foster this beneficial mold growth, so not much else needs to be done in the following months. According to Kat, Appalachian is pretty straightforward and easy compared to the other makes. With such simplicity, there is no obscuring the quality of the milk. Try a slice with Tait Farm Apricot Butter!

Mountaineer

Milk: unpasteurized cow
Rennet: animal
Age: 6+ months
Ingredients: unpasteurized cow’s milk, salt, rennet, culture
Texture/profile: firm but supple, earthy with notes of toasted nuts and caramel
Pairing idea: Kozlik’s Mustard

Originally produced in their second year of operation, the Feete family feel Mountaineer really came into its own after a trip to the Alps in 2004. It was there that they were able to see what an alpine cheese is truly supposed to be; a dense, complex reflection of terroir. For fans of Comte, Abondance, and Beaufort, this beefy, golden alpine style will not disappoint.

The make for Mountaineer differs a bit from its smaller cousins Appalachian and Grayson. Raw milk is cultured, coagulated, and cut into curds, but it is cooked longer, almost an hour, all the way up to 125 degrees fahrenheit. More moisture is cooked off during this time to allow for a firmer texture and more complex flavor profile to develop over its six months in the caves. Outside of the longer cook it is the same process as Appalachian. Curds are drained and pressed under plates, then hooped and pressed again. The weight is increased when pressing to expel even more whey.

For its affinage, Mountaineer is a bit of a goldilocks cheese between the other two. It is a natural rind that is washed in morge (smear-ripened) like Grayson. To start, it is washed twice a week, but is quickly reduced to once a week when the rind starts to develop. This less frequent washing allows for the rind to have some level of bacterial growth and funk, but nothing quite like the pungency of Grayson. Mountaineer begins aging on wire racks to allow for proper airflow for its young, developing rind. Once the rind is developed further it can be moved to wooden boards. Excess moisture is the bane of a good alpine rind, as is drying out too much. This wood allows for the perfect balance. An “aged on wooden boards” distinction is a requirement for many legacy European Alpine cheeses like Gruyere and Comte. Mountaineer is truly one of my favorite American cheeses, I highly recommend melting it on a breakfast sandwich!

Grayson

Milk: unpasteurized cow
Rennet: animal
Age: 2-3 months
Ingredients: unpasteurized cow’s milk, salt, rennet, culture
Texture/profile: supple with beefy, grassy, oniony notes
Pairing idea: Smoking Goose Stagberry Salami

A relatively recent occurrence in the cheese world is cheesemakers choosing creative names for their cheeses. Typically, legacy European cheeses would simply be named after the area where they are made. Think of all the big names – Cheddar, Gruyere, Gouda. Grayson, named for the county within which Meadow Creek lies, carries on those naming traditions in tandem with the old world cheese making techniques. It was during a trip to Ireland around the start of the new millennium that Helen and Rick visited Jeffa Gill to witness the making of her renowned washed rind cheese Durrus that they decided their milk would be a suitable vessel for a similar style. (Initially Rick insisted Helen would never be able to make such a cheese, but for our benefit, the power of spousal spite prevailed.) In the mid-aughts Grayson became nationally available via New York-based Murray’s. This rise in popularity was enough to allow Meadow Creek to transition into a primarily cheesemaking dairy, rather than selling fresh milk.

For its production, Grayson is a higher moisture cheese, so it’s cooked even less than Appalachian, only about ten minutes. It’s also drained, not into a vat, but directly into the hoops as loose curd. This needs to happen in less than ten minutes, so it’s a brief but very action-packed part of the make. Grayson is not pressed, but gravity-drained, so it must be flipped frequently to make sure the whey drains off evenly. The first flipping occurs as soon as it is out of the vat, and then again after three minutes, at thirty minutes, an hour, and two hours. So, unlike its sibling Appalachian, Grayson is high-maintenance!

Due to the level of care and attention during affinage they require, they say washed-rind cheeses are “made in the cellar”. Grayson is a prime example of such. To get those lovely, brick-orange B-Linens rinds to grow, each cheese must be washed in what’s called a morge (which is a brine mixture of water, salt, and cultures) three times a week. Once the proper molds start to establish themselves around the second to third week, they can ease back to twice a week washing until the cheese reaches maturity at eight weeks. I highly recommend using Grayson in place of reblochon on a tartiflette for a hardy potato casserole to impress your family this holiday season!

TARTIFLETTE RECIPE serves 4
(adapted from the Tartiflette recipe in Melted Cheese by Ryland Peters & Small)

Ingredients:

1.5 lbs – Waxy Potatoes (example Yukon Gold)
2 Tbsp – Unsalted Butter
5 oz – Bacon Lardons (or thick cut bacon, cubed)
1 – Garlic Clove, thinly sliced
¼ Cup – Dry White Wine
Salt & Pepper
⅔ Cup – Heavy Cream
½ lb – Grayson

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375F.

Cook the potatoes in a pan of boiling salted water for 9-12 minutes, until just tender. Drain, thickly slice, and set aside.

Heat the butter in a frying pan/skillet and fry the lardons until starting to crisp. Add the garlic and wine, and bubble until the liquid has almost evaporated.

Season with salt & pepper. Remove from the heat and stir in the cream along with the potato slices previously set aside.

Layer the potato mixture with most of the Grayson slices in a medium ovenproof dish, pouring any remaining cream from the pan at the end before topping with a final layer of Grayson.

Bake for 20-30 minutes until the tartiflette is golden and bubbling.