Annie Bell - The Modern Dairy

My passion for dairy finds its roots in a journey I made some twenty years ago. I had been commissioned by YOU Magazine to go to Normandy to interview the chef Jean-Christophe Novelli who had recently converted an old watermill into a restaurant. Coincidentally my neighbour, producer/director Max Jourdan, had been booked as the accompanying photographer.

So one morning we squeezed ourselves into his small car along with all the camera cases and tripods and set off for the Cotentin Peninsula, the finger of land that protrudes into the Channel with the port of Cherbourg at its tip. Aside from plenty of lively conversation that saw our journey speed by, my abiding memory is of stepping off the kerb of a dusty West London pavement into the car, and out again onto the soft tread of long grasses on arrival. I had never encountered grass that luscious, every blade having the semblance of a cartoon image, long and straight with neatly tapered ends. It looked as though it had been groomed with a wire brush. And the scent that accompanied it was overwhelmingly heady and sweet.

The Cotentin is something like being on an island. Its eastern shores are fringed with the landing beaches that lead round to the Cte Fleurie, beloved by the Impressionists, while those on the west coast look out towards the (English) Channel Islands and the (French) Iles Chausey. A part of the Cotentin is reclaimed marshes, while another part comprises gently undulating valleys with rivers at their base, salt marshes and estuaries, and ancient heaths. And the weather is wild and unpredictable, squalling in and over the land, misting the pasture with rain.

If you fast forward to today, I have lost count of the number of times I have made that journey to our farmhouse there, a seventeen-century corps de ferme that once belonged to the cousin of English diarist John Evelyn, author of the celebrated book Acetaria. It lies deep within the dairy country of the bocage, a mishmash of medieval fields traced by coppiced hedgerows that look like a patchwork quilt in disarray on an unmade bed. Some of this pasture is unimproved grassland that goes back hundreds and hundreds of years, and has never been ploughed. Unlike farmland further east towards Caen, where it is flat, there has been a move to preserve this arrangement. The result is a continuing tradition of small dairy farms that produce the wonderful butters, crme crue (raw unpasteurised cream), fromage frais and cheeses to be found in the local markets.

So those first few steps on the soft Norman turf on arrival continue to enchant me as much now as they did then. They signal the start of feasting on Camembert, Livarot and Pont-lvque, the pungent and creamy cornerstone cheeses of Normandy. These are the cows milk cheeses born of the milk from the herds that graze freely on those lush, scented grasses, and the quality of their diet translates naturally into these products.

While I write this preface, it is teatime as Jean Legraverand, a third-generation dairy farmer, cordons off the route from the field, where seventy-five Norman cows are grazing in the late afternoon sun of August, to the dairy. With their distinctive dappled chestnut markings and lunettes the two patches over their eyes I find it hard to take my eyes off them, one of natures great works of art. Together with the iconic Jersey breed of dairy cattle (pictured), they promise exceptionally rich milk high in butter fat.

They are scattered over four hectares of pasture, some standing, some lying, together in twos and threes or alone. Like large tardy dogs, they instantly recognise his call as he bids them to come for milking, and they start slowly lumbering towards the gate in a funnel of movement. Their response is both learnt and innate: they know the routine, and they also know there is food at the other end and relief for their swollen udders. They form themselves into an orderly line, two by two, as they amble down the narrow lane of dried mud towards the barn.

Jeans operation is as close to free-range as a cow could hope for, and after the evening milking and feeding in the barn, they are at liberty to roam back to the field for the evening. Come the morning, they will have made their own way back to the milking parlour.

Todays reprieve of dairy that allows us to welcome it back into our lives is life-affirming. For many years dairy has proved an easy public health target for initiatives seeking to reduce our intake of saturated fat. But the more studies carried out, the more science advances and the more we learn. The fat component of milk is made up of four hundred different fatty acids with a wide variety of effects, many of which are beneficial to our health. Fat, and in particular saturated fat, is no longer to be feared, respected perhaps, but also relished. And the way it is produced has everything to do with good nutrition.

All too often we find quality and health pulling in different directions, where one is at the expense of the other. So it is both rare, and special, that dairy offers us the best and the healthiest in a single package. The key is that we look to grass-fed cattle and artisanal production instead of grain-fed stock and industrial products that have altered the make-up of dairy over the past sixty years. We nearly all have access to organic milk, and regional traditions by way of fine butters and cheeses, creams and yogurts. The renaissance of this kind of small-scale dairy farming is one that we should cling onto and celebrate. I hope with this book to combine nutrition and how to eat dairy for good health with a love of food and cooking, to bring a little in the way of harmony to this remarkable foodstuff.

The closer you peer through the magnifying glass at milk, the more extraordinary it becomes. We bandy around the expression superfood, crowning new ingredients on a monthly basis for their nutrient-rich profile, and yet I cannot think of a single one that comes anywhere close to matching milk. And its not just with awe at its nutrient content, the range of produce made using this humble liquid is breath-taking, from the yogurts and fromage frais, to the different creams, butters and cheeses. As well as being widely available, most dairy products are affordable, in particular by comparison to sources of protein such as meat or fish. So here you have a complete food, that also offers infinite variety and scope for enjoyment from the simple pleasure of a sliver of cheese with a select pickle, to the many different ways of including it in both sweet and savoury dishes.