Food - Farmers’ Market

If you’ve been pulling up your fresh crop of asparagus and wondering where to put it (there are only so many spears you can tuck behind your ears) you’ll be delighted to hear that trugs are back for summer at the Lewes Farmers’ Market this Saturday. Also new at the market is unpasteurised milk, which apparently is so difficult to buy in America, people end up cow-sharing to get round the strict regulations. One Amish farmer in Ohio had his license revoked for selling raw milk to a customer who turned out to be an undercover agent. But in Lewes, it is entirely legal and you don’t need to buy part of a cow to drink the stuff. William and Suzanne, the third generation of Craigs to run Gote Farm, Ringmer, will be bringing their milk along to the Farmers’ Market. Their cows are grazed in the summer and fed home-grown silage in the winter. There is some debate about the safety of raw milk, but the Craigs have stringent modern health and safety practices in place, which minimise the risk. The point of not pasteurising it is that you preserve more vitamins and keep the friendly bacteria alive. Raw milk is supposed to be helpful for children with allergies. Advocates of it say it has a vastly superior taste too. Judge for yourself, they will have samples on their stall, fresh from the cows after Friday afternoon’s milking. EC