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From Fragrance to Farm Life: Chasing the Scent of Something Real

I have always liked things that taste nice, and smell nice, it’s one of the reasons I got involved in the perfume industry.    

Good coffee, good tea, good wine – these are some of my favourite things.               

In recent years I have become interested in good meat, my wife would say obsessed, I’ll stick with interested.

By good meat, I mean meat from animals that have been raised the way nature intended, just walking around on grass until the day they are ready to cross the rainbow bridge and be turned into steaks, mince and delicious sausages.  

One of the issues is there are no standards one can rely on, grass fed can mean the animal ate grass at some point in its life, but doesn’t tell you anything about the 3 months in feedlot being fattened up. I have found the only way is to go and visit the producer and see for myself.

With kids at school we are limited to holidays when the schools are closed. The only long holiday they get during the year is now over July and that is when we will make a pilgrimage to the bush or the mountains.

This year I decided to take the girls to the Natal midlands for a week where we have done some truly interesting and fun farm stays. They get to experience milking cows and goats, collecting fresh eggs, getting to know retired horses and see that farming takes real effort. It’s quite a process to get food on plates and milk into cappuccinos. Farming is a business and as such it looks for more efficient ways to do things which unfortunately are often at odds with producing the best produce especially if one looks at the nutritional side of things.  

We try to buy our meat and other produce from small producers who tend to do things in a more traditional way, which I believe generally gives better food. Many of them have chalets on the farms to supplement their farming operations and it gives me the opportunity to get real insight into where our food is coming from.

Yesterday we visited a micro dairy in Curry’s Post area. It is probably the best regenerative farming operation I’ve ever seen or read about for that matter.

It certainly helped that the weather was perfect, clear blue skies, a crisp chill in the air. The air smelt so clean, one forgets when living in big cities what country air smells like. We started the tour meeting the pigs, such amusing and inquisitive animals that were up for pats and ear scratches.  

From there we went out into the fields where the first glimpses of the magic of the place could be seen. The grass was still thick with a wide variety of different grasses clearly visible even now in the dead of winter. That grass has a special smell, like sweet hay – sweet hay and clean air. The soil is dark and loamy with an earthy fragrant scent. The cows looked so content watching us as we wandered around.  

We met the chickens as they hopped and scurried about the place, keeping the pests under control. What funny animals they are.

The highlight of the trip was tasting the milk from those fat happy cows, I have never had milk that tasted quite like that. Sweet, creamy and delicious, the way milk should taste. 

I always look forward to these trips to the country, get to experience life at a different pace. Smell sweet clean air and get away from the constant background hum of the big city.

Special times.  

All the best

Rob

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