Butter from The Bunten Farm's Milking Devons

I recently tasted the best butter I’ve ever eaten in my life. Sure, Smjör (from Iceland) and Anchor (New Zealand) butters are good, but the butter from The Bunten Farm in Orford, N.H. is sublime.

Unfortunately, after my half pound supply of this deep yellow, creamy and rich butter runs out (photo, right) that’s probably it for a while, since The Bunten Farm is a small farm and restaurant operation run by a husband-and-wife team.

The milk used by Bruce and Chris Balch comes from their herd of American Milking Devons, a rare breed of cattle that numbers less than one thousand. (Most of our milk comes from Holsteins and Jerseys, which produce prodigious amounts of milk.)

The highlights of the dinner I ate there were the dairy products, including the butter, milk, cream and ice cream. I—literally—consumed butter and cream by the spoonful, plain. They were that rich and flavorful, unlike the commercial dairy products available in supermarkets.

We were also lucky enough to get a tour of the Balch’s barn, where we visited part of their herd, including a beautiful three-week-old calf (photo, left). Its color was a striking reddish brown.