Comments on: Fresh (raw) milk from the French farm

By: Catherine

Catherine — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:44:37 +0000

My mother is 73,lives in a small village in eastern France, she still picks up the fresh milk every other day during the milking in her own milk pail. We grew up on fresh milk and we have never been sick. Anyway the farmer has to give up samples of the milk at least once a week to be inspected or more, sampling is so strict that I can’t imagine we take a risk in drinking it.
It is even still warm when we pick it up.

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:22:37 +0000

Fortunately not. We only rent a house on the farm. Yes it is very idyllic but we are always heading across the border into France for holidays. We live in north eastern Switzerland (German speaking) and we find that France feels a lot more like home (we are Australians). We are currently considering a move to Lyon next year with our 3 daughters. Maybe I should give up on learning Deutsch and start with some French.

By: Boris

Boris — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 06:44:05 +0000

Sounds idyllic Lisa! Do you have to milk the cow yourself…?

By: Lisa

Lisa — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 06:40:34 +0000

Mmm, fresh milk, great. We currently live in Switzerland (perhaps a move to Lyon next year, fingers crossed) and rent a house on a dairy farm. We get our milk fresh in the morning too. I just put it on the stove until it reaches boiling point to get rid of any nasties. Then when it cools you can scrape the cream off the top for your bread and jam.

By: Boris

Boris — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:54:27 +0000

Green top? I don’t remember that – is that the milk that had cream on top? Now there’s something difficult to get in France – someone told me the cream all goes to the veal farmers!
Johnny, we do get a bag of organic vegetables each week but we get what we’re given i.e. no choice, just what is in season, and it’s pretty expensive. Eggs we get from a lady who raises chickens as if they are pets and are very good quality.
Other things are available direct but often very pricey. We can get foie gras, wine etc direct but they don’t quite count as staple items…
I think we’d need to head to the Limousin (250km) to get quality beef direct from the farm and potatoes aren’t much grown around here because it’s too dry. Still, a nice bottle of St. Emilion goes a long way to compensate.

By: Johnny Norfolk

Johnny Norfolk — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:06:59 +0000

We need to see far more farmers selling direct to the public from their farm gate. Here in Norfolk we can buy all sort of things direct from the farm or fishermen. I do a round trip to pick up eggs not stamped at £4 per tray for free range, Potatoes by the sack .for £5,any ammout of cromer crabs at £2 each, lobsters for £7.50. Beef from the Red Pol herd at Sandringham estate, that is the best i have ever had.Cheesr from a local maker The list is endless So support your farmers to go it alone and forget the state.
I cannot buy milk direct YET.
.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 12:17:21 +0000

Aah, good old “Green Top” milk. That was the colour of the foil tops that were on the bottles that our horse-drawn milk-float brought round every morning… Then the H&S p*****ks got involved and ruined it for everyone.

We had to go to the trouble of getting it from the farm direct, never did me any harm and I still look forward to having it again.

We’ve just gotten ourselves a couple of ewes and are hoping to get their milk ‘fresh from the tap’.