Turning milk into cheese may not be as miraculous as water into wine, but the transformation in taste bud impact can be almost as intoxicating. At least water and wine are both liquids – cheese is a whole other state of being.
Now think about turning Georgia grass into cheese. If you're a farmstead cheesemaker like Rebecca Williams at Many Fold Farms, that's exactly what you do every day, with major contributions from a herd of sheep. It's the sheep on Rebecca's farm that chew up the grass, take in its nutrients and flavors, and are then kind enough to share the milk that derives a good deal of its character from that Georgia grass. Without the grass, no sheep. Without the sheep, no milk. Without the milk, no cheese. Luckily, Georgia is benefitting from a growing group of zealot cheesemakers eager to shepherd that transformation from the grass and hay on their farm to the cheese on your table.
Most of the farmstead cheesemakers that now call Georgia home inhabit a band that stretches east and west around Atlanta. Not far from where I-20 hits the Alabama border, there's the Capra Gia Cheese Company and their four breeds of goats. A bit closer to Atlanta, into the verdant Chattahoochee Hill Country, you come across Many Fold Farms and their many, many sheep. Just barely outside the perimeter on the south side of town, Mary Rigdon and her goats make what is Atlanta's most local farmstead cheese at Decimal.Place Farm. To the east, a bit past Athens, you'll find Nature's Harmony Farm and their Jersey cows in Elberton. Finally, south of Augusta, Flat Creek Lodge manages to combine a dairy farm, cheesemaking, and a hunting and fishing lodge all in one place on the outskirts of Swainsboro. The proximity of all of these cheesemakers to the Atlanta market makes it (relatively) easy for them to tap into Atlanta's popular farmers markets, as well as the restaurants and cheese shops in town that put an emphasis on providing quality local products.
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