"Every raw-milk cheese is an artefact of the land. It carries the imprint of the earth from which it came. It's a living piece of geography. A sense of place." So says Brad Kessler in this meditation on the origins of pastoralism and the joy of making a living from livestock.rnAfter tiring of Manhattan, Mr Kessler, a novelist, moves with his photographer wife to a 75-acre (30-hectare) goat farm in Vermont. As they throw off the shackles of the city the couple learn how to rear, breed and milk their goats and how to make cheese: salty, piquant mozzarella, floral chevre and, ultimately, an aged, hard tomme, its inside the colour of old piano keys, its taste redolent of a freshly scythed meadow. As he hones his skills as goat farmer and cheesemaker-the grittiness of the former and the serenity of the latter providing a measured contrast-Mr Kessler explores how pastoralism underpins many aspects of human culture and how alphabets, art, diet and economy often grew out of a pastoralist setting.
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