Oh, I just had to share this with you!\u00a0 Just off the wire.\u00a0 Unreal! <\/p>\n
Borscht Cows Return<\/u><\/p>\n
(PEREYASLAV, UKRAINE) Twenty miles southeast of this historic City on the Dneiper River is the dairy farm of Volter Tsap.\u00a0 His Grandfather Dimitri had been the head of the\u00a0People’s Dairy Co-Operative of Kiev Oblast when the Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, and now his grandson has spearheaded the return to small farming that existed for hundreds of years in this part of the Ukraine. <\/p>\n
Tsap has focused his farm\u2019s activity, The Dobrii Djen Farm,\u00a0to the production of natural borscht<\/em>.\u00a0 Taking a page from traditional farmers, Tsap feeds his cows a diet of fresh beets.\u00a0 Hundreds of years ago it was discovered that cows that were fed a diet of beets would regurgitate their cud <\/em>in a liquid form that became the staple of a local soup\u2026 beet borscht.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n As Tsap explains it, the beets are ingested and in one of the cow\u2019s stomach chambers, the rumen-reticulum, it is separated into layers of solid and liquid material and returned to the mouth for further breakdown.\u00a0 It is at this time that the liquid is \u201charvested\u201d from the cow and stored in wooden containers in cool sub-terranean rooms where it is stabilized and aged for six months before it is bottled for commercial distribution as beet borscht. <\/em>It had been a method that farmers had used for generations, “My Grandfather’s Grandfather made it this way,” said Tsap.<\/p>\n Currently Tsap has 200 head of cattle used only\u00a0for borscht production or\u00a0as breed stock.\u00a0Another 100 head of cattle are used for other dairy purposes, and the\u00a0farm also has\u00a020 hectares planted to beets.\u00a0 He points proudly to one of the outbuildings as the location where the Treaty of Pereyaslav was signed in 1654 bringing a peace between the Cossack Hetmanate and Poland.<\/p>\n Today production of natural <\/em>beet borscht from the Dobrii Djen Farm has the finest restaurants and specialty stores knocking on\u00a0the\u00a0door to acquire\u00a0Tsap’s unique\u00a0product.<\/p>\n When asked about the wider success of his effort, Tsap responded, \u201cit\u2019s the land, it\u2019s the cow, it\u2019s the soup.\u201d<\/p>\n Associated Press–<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Oh, I just had to share this with you!\u00a0 Just off the wire.\u00a0 Unreal! Borscht Cows Return (PEREYASLAV, UKRAINE) Twenty miles southeast of this historic City on the Dneiper River is the dairy farm of Volter Tsap.\u00a0 His Grandfather Dimitri … Continue reading