42 culturecheesemag.com T R AV E L 202 2
Fleur de la Prairie
Making good cheese starts with good
milk, which in turn starts with good
feed and ultimately, good dirt. The dirt
in central Illinois, which was once wet
prairie, is some of the richest and most
fertile in the world. Leslie Cooperband
and Wes Farrell of Prairie Fruits Farm
and Creamery want to make sure it stays
that way.
Before Cooperband and Farrell began
raising goats and making cheeses, they
had been professors of soil science,
which helps to explain why the pastures
at Prairie Fruits look more like baby
forests than they do typical grazing land.
In addition to perennial grasses, the
Animal Welfare Approved herd feeds on
legumes, herbaceous plants, and young
tree leaves—a practice called silvopasture,
which is as beneficial to the earth as it is
to the goats and their milk.
Flavor of place is present in all of Prairie
Fruits' cheeses, but none so much as
Fleur de la Prairie. Made between April
and November, the geotrichum-rinded
wheel is adorned with dried edible flowers
and herbs from the farm's gardens. "I
was loosely inspired by Brin D'Amour—a
Corsican sheep's milk cheese—to
reflect where the cheese is made," says
Cooperband. Because it has such a
delicate and distinctive flavor, she likes to
keep accompaniments simple: "A drizzle
of early season honey—lighter and more
floral—and a crusty baguette or a plain
wheat cracker." c
w r i t t e n by S U S A N S H E R R I L L A XE L RO D
p h oto g r a p h e d by A DA M D eTO U R
s t y l e d by KE N D R A S M ITH
"Our attempt is not to create a
certain flavor profile with the herbs
and flowers, but to adorn the cheese
with them to tie it back to place."
