Agriturismo Mantua organises farmers' markets and encourages tourists to visit farms, cheese- and winemakers.
A young farm cheese ($5 for a 400-gram round) is also available, along with butter (occasionally) and fresh eggs.
There were earthy, chewy four-grain vegetable soup, house-made farm cheese, and handmade taglierini pasta with chanterelles and a dusting of black truffle.
And the menu proudly lists the nearby origins of Farm to Table's mostly organic fare: fruits and vegetables from Taliaferro Farms and Meadowbrook Farms, cheese from Sprout Creek Farm, bread from the All You Knead bakery.
Here the shoppers throng to Market Place and Chestergate in search of the local farm cheese, sourdough from the local bakers, and the warm comfort food supplied by the Greek Kitchen stall.
Al Tavolo — "at the table" in Italian — relies on many of the farm's products, like the creamery-fresh butter and soft spreadable farm cheese (blended on one occasion with black olives, on another with quince jelly) that are delivered to tables with bread; the yogurt used to bind a luscious lagniappe of honeydew-cucumber gazpacho; the cheese platter; and the ice creams.
Close by, in the Otavalo countryside, Hacienda Zuleta is a grand seventeenth century former presidential residence, surrounded by 2,000 hectares of pastureland with resident stables, trout farm, cheese production and condor rehabilitation.
Enjoy this tasty farm cheese right away or store it in the fridge for up to a week.
Open Mon-Fri 10.30am-8.30pm, Sat 10.30am-2pm, 4.30pm-8.30pm Cheese rocks – so thinks cheese fanatic Katherine McLaughlin, who's set up this shop in Gòtic specialising in hand-crafted farm cheeses sourced from small independent producers across Spain.
But because the milk for the Coach Farm cheeses is now purchased from Mill Hill farm, and not produced by Mr. Foster, the cheeses can no longer be sold in the New York City Greenmarkets, which require that food be made from start to finish by the vendor.
