Despite the US Government's war on food, the madness has not yet spread to the UK, were you can still buy raw milk. Good stuff. Got some from Broadway market today (along with some Polish cured pork products, apples, olive oil, garlic stuffed olives, a few slices of cheesecake, ...)
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Maybe, in the UK, they're not used (or expecting) screw-you-all-capitalism combined with plutocratic governance by multi-national agri-business? On an island of 55 million people, who are more "homogeneous" (no pun intended) and having lived through a massive assault on their lives and sovereignty just 60 years ago, the British seem to band together, uniting, much more than Americans who band together only to pursue their own selfish myopic interests.
The American greed and selfishness of business practices lead to snake oil charlatans back alley "milk" sales that sickened and killed hundreds or thousands many years ago, which opened the door for Cargill, Monsanto, and other conglomerates to successfully lobby and pass corporately written legislation that mandates industrialized food production while crushing/hampering/stunting small farmers.
In the UK, such selfish greed that can endanger the nations' citizens, would be seen as unpatriotic, an assault on the nation's defenses, since the last century has seen Jerry attack them twice? Every able-bodied man, woman, and child are needed to man the defenses, perhaps? Feeding anyone sub-standard food products would not only hurt your customers, but would hurt the nation potentially as well. In the US, getting a few people sick, and then moving onto a new market is more what the status quo used to be. Now, industrial agri-business just suppresses news of outbreaks whenever they can, and their lawyers fight the rest of the cases.
A similar situation exists with D.O.C. cheeses, made for centuries to high quality practices in France, Italy, and the UK. Non-pastuerized, non-homogenized, flavorful, rich, delicious high quality cheeses, that COSTCO never has to recall, unlike their cheaply made and poorly regulated American equivalents.
It all comes down to TRUST. You trust your farmer, so you buy food from him. The farmer makes money, and stays in business. No onerous regulations needed. Quality IS determined by the market place, when trust is involved. Contrast that to the US, where there's no trust, there's no relationship, there's no farmer identity, there's no long term thinking, only quarter-to-quarter profits, short term return on invest, MBA thinking. Pasteurize it, because we know there's e-coli in it. Homogenize it because we know 1000s of cows went into it. Our lawyers and our actuaries have figured out we need to spend $5 million on lobbying both parties in Iowa this year, so that we can continue to suppress those evil little farmers who are trying to make niche products...
I am glad you found a dairy farmer you can trust. Myself, I don't drink milk anymore, except in the occasional white Russian.
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