Grass-Fed and Well Said
Standards set forth by the Irish Food Board, Bord Bia require cows that produce grass-fed dairy to graze outside for an average of 240 days a year and that 95% of the cow's diet be grass. To add to this fairytale setting the farms are often family-owned- it's a “dairytale.”
Irish dairy farm-charm and why some people may be so damn good at digesting lactose.
Quote
"Some mornings you wake up and think, gee I look handsome today. Other days I think, what am I doing in the movies? I wanna go back to Ireland and drive a forklift.”- Liam Neeson
Aha, the simple and down-to-earth days instead of glamour and riches. The days of driving a forklift over a Lamborghini, and the days of having a rich glass of milk over a glass of Dom Pérignon. We all long for simplicity now and again instead of the adrenalin rush and sparkling risks.
Everything is green in Ireland, except the money
Dairy, milk, in particular, has been said to be the currency of Ireland. A mere 4-5% of Irish folks are lactose intolerant, that is they have issues digesting lactose (the naturally occurring sugar in milk and other dairy foods). We can give a nod to a genetic trait known as lactase persistence that makes the Irish pretty darn good at digesting lactose.
Often, lactase- the enzyme responsible for digesting lactose, declines with age. But, for the Irish, this is not always the case. I still remember going to my grandparent’s house in Minnesota and dashing to the fridge. Inside was always a box of milk, in a milk holder nonetheless, and plenty of cheese and yogurt. The freezer housed the ice cream, which usually included a Dilly Bar or two from Dairy Queen. Sweet memories, literally and figuratively. My Grandma’s roots in particular were Irish and Belgium. Belgium has an estimated 15% lactose intolerance rate. Staying true to her Irish roots there was no lack of lactase where she came from.
In the story of Ireland’s dairy culture, we cannot deny the many ways milk connects one another. This may be the connection of the dairy farmer to the kitchen chef, which connects the chef to the cow grazing in the pasture, which connects the grazing cow to the family dinner table. Bothar is the Irish word for “road,” yet its original meaning was “cow path,” a path wide enough for two cows. As with India, the cow is sacred in Ireland.
November 2016
I flew solo from NYC to Dublin for a long weekend (shocker, I know). I called out of work sick ("Irish flu," who knew)? It was the weekend after my birthday, the weekend after Trump got elected President of the United States, the weekend I decided to jet out and follow in the footsteps of my late Grandmother, the same Grandma who kept a great stock of dairy under cool conditions, and who passed away June of 2016. It was a good weekend to get away.
