Hipsters, tourists, and "artisinal" devil crabs...

[Paisley]

Probably, the only people still hand-milking cows and goats are the Amish and small hobby farmers.

 

[tonyb]

There are still family-run dairy farms in Maine, because farmers organized to protect their interests in the 1930s and we have price controls on milk, but the days of going out with a stool and a pail to milk old Bossy are long gone. Milking machinery was in widespread use here by the end of the thirties, and remains so today.

My dairymen relatives' farms are still family operations. But on farms where they once milked 40 cows that got out to pasture on a daily basis they now milk more than 200 who rarely if ever stroll the great out of doors. They truck in feed and truck out manure. Spanish-speaking fellows do much of the work, especially in the new milking parlors that look more like an operating room than anything you might see in Country Living magazine.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The Borden exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair showed Americans the future of dairy farming, which future was already becoming the present.

Not much fun for the cows, when you think of it.

 

[GHT]

There are still family-run dairy farms in Maine, because farmers organized to protect their interests in the 1930s and we have price controls on milk, but the days of going out with a stool and a pail to milk old Bossy are long gone. Milking machinery was in widespread use here by the end of the thirties, and remains so today.

We have rural museums where you can see how farming has developed. Everything from horse drawn ploughs to hand shearing wheat and, of course, hand milking cows. There was a great photo in the press of late where a farmer still uses horses instead of tractors.

 

[tonyb]

The Borden exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair showed Americans the future of dairy farming, which future was already becoming the present.

Not much fun for the cows, when you think of it.

I harbor no illusions about what our consuming of animal products means for the animals and our environment. And I take no exception to those who go vegetarian or even vegan for ethical reasons. I'm not there myself, but I'm more receptive to it than I was. I just hope I wouldn't become holier than thou in the process, and I would hope not to lose sight of the needs and aspirations of my more than seven billion co-speciesists.

 

[Harp]

You get that in Newtown here, an inner city Sydney suburb on the doorstep of the CBD...

There was a restaurant in Sydney, Steel's, I think...great place for steak.

 

[HudsonHawk]

To be honest, I've had pasture-raised beef and I've had plain old styrofoam-tray beef, and I honestly can't tell the difference. I'm sure the steer can, but from a gastronomic point of view they seem to me and my prole palate to be indistinguishable. Is this like wine, and I'm supposed to be able to pick out top notes of clover and alfalfa over a supple meadow-fescue finish?

Cigars are the same way. The high fallutin publishers of certain magazines like to describe them as "oak, with pronounced notes of toffee and chocolate and a leathery finish". The old Cuban guys I knew growing up would just say "it's relaxing while listening to the ball game at the end of the day". No matter the craft, there is sure to be a cadre of pretentious blowhards.

 

[Fading Fast]

There are still family-run dairy farms in Maine, because farmers organized to protect their interests in the 1930s and we have price controls on milk, but the days of going out with a stool and a pail to milk old Bossy are long gone. Milking machinery was in widespread use here by the end of the thirties, and remains so today.

And I've read (don't know for a fact) that milk prices are higher in Maine (New England) than the rest of the country because of price controls which hits the poor very hard - no choices are easy.

Edit add: Effectively, price controls on milk that help the farmer become a regressive tax on the poor that spend a larger percentage of their budget on food.

 

[LizzieMaine]

What bugs me most is when I forget to buy milk and have to eat dry cereal for breakfast the next morning. Dry shredded wheat is not fun.

As to prices, I pay $1.95 a quart, which doesn't seem too oppressive at the rate I go thru it.

 

[Paisley]

Here are kids milking goats the old school way...at their school:
http://www.wthr.com/article/indianapolis-students-get-lesson-with-goats

 

[Fading Fast]

What bugs me most is when I forget to buy milk and have to eat dry cereal for breakfast the next morning. Dry shredded wheat is not fun.

We laugh at ourselves as, for two reasonably smart people who drink milk all the time, we still run out occasionally - shouldn't be that hard for us to keep a product with a month-plus expiration in the refrigerator.

 

[tonyb]

...

As to prices, I pay $1.95 a quart, which doesn't seem too oppressive at the rate I go thru it.

I often remind myself that it's no bargain if it spoils before you get around to consuming it.

But we do go through nonfat milk here. The lovely missus has at least one latte a day (the price of that fancy espresso machine we bought almost a decade ago has long been amortized), the ingredients for which are among the items I had damn well better keep in inventory, lest I never hear the end of it.

 

[MisterCairo]

I finally need to ask the OP:

What, exactly, is an "artisanal devil crab"???

 

[Bamaboots]

What, exactly, is an "artisanal devil crab"???

Thank you.

 

[sheeplady]

I went through an agriculture program.

It sometimes disturbs me that I did not become a vegan as a result.

 

[HudsonHawk]

I finally need to ask the OP:

What, exactly, is an "artisanal devil crab"???

Devil crabs are a local delicacy in Tampa and the Florida gulf coast. They are simply a spicy fried crab croquette. They are historically street food made from local leftovers sold to local factory workers. In recent years, they've become more and more expensive, which has caused much consternation. They also are the darlings of food trucks and the local "artisanal" foodie scene, much to the chagrin of the old timers who remember them as simply a cheap lunch snack sold from a street cart. It was a discussion of people complaining about the cost that spurred my general question.

 

[Frunobulax]

Devil crabs are a local delicacy in Tampa and the Florida gulf coast. They are simply a spicy fried crab croquette. They are historically street food made from local leftovers sold to local factory workers. In recent years, they've become more and more expensive, which has caused much consternation. They also are the darlings of food trucks and the local "artisanal" foodie scene, much to the chagrin of the old timers who remember them as simply a cheap lunch snack sold from a street cart. It was a discussion of people complaining about the cost that spurred my general question.

Looks yummy.

 

[Zombie_61]

Devil crabs are a local delicacy in Tampa and the Florida gulf coast. They are simply a spicy fried crab croquette. They are historically street food made from local leftovers sold to local factory workers. In recent years, they've become more and more expensive, which has caused much consternation. They also are the darlings of food trucks and the local "artisanal" foodie scene, much to the chagrin of the old timers who remember them as simply a cheap lunch snack sold from a street cart. It was a discussion of people complaining about the cost that spurred my general question.

*sigh* Now I'm hungry and would love to try these, but the closest I could get without driving a couple of thousand miles would be crab cakes and Louisiana hot sauce.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

What bugs me most is when I forget to buy milk and have to eat dry cereal for breakfast the next morning. Dry shredded wheat is not fun.

I must be the only person in the world who likes cereal dry. For some reason I never liked it with milk.

 

[GHT]

Devil crabs are a local delicacy in Tampa and the Florida gulf coast. They are simply a spicy fried crab croquette. They are historically street food made from local leftovers sold to local factory workers. In recent years, they've become more and more expensive, which has caused much consternation. They also are the darlings of food trucks and the local "artisanal" foodie scene, much to the chagrin of the old timers who remember them as simply a cheap lunch snack sold from a street cart. It was a discussion of people complaining about the cost that spurred my general question.

Similarly, there was a time when fishmongers simply couldn't give monkfish away. Then some foodie chef came up with the idea of chopping it's head off, renaming it with a Latin title, as in, Lophius Americanus and charging over two hundred percent more.