Farm Fresh Rhode Island blog

You haven’t tasted ricotta until you’ve tried Narragansett Creamery’s. For a state with dairies as gorgeous as ours, Rhode Island deserves for its first cheeses to taste this good. If only we’d started making cheese years ago! Well, why haven’t RI dairy farms been producing artisan farmstead cheeses all these years like our New England neighbors?

A couple of reasons why RI lacks farmstead cheesemakers:

1. Cost: The startup equipment for a small dairy farm could be upwards of $70K.
2. Legalese: The interpretation of regulations and the process for farmers could be unclear and confusing. It was years since farms were selling cheese and so a new precedent is just now being established.
3. Community inertia: Farmers don’t have a community of other cheesemakers to share knowledge support with in RI.

This unfortunate situation makes you appreciate the mere existence of a RI ricotta all the more. It’s slightly sweet and made without salt, so this delicate cheese needs to be enjoyed quickly, and ideally shared. Its fluffy and creamy texture make it perfect for topping off Olga’s pizza dough, which we’ll have for the first time this week at the Wintertime Farmers’ Market.

And if you can’t make it to the Wintertime Farmers’ Market, you’ll find Narragansett Creamery’s hand-crafted, small-batch cheeses from made with milk from local dairies at Farmstead in Wayland Square and a few other retailers.