Portage County: The Goat Cheese Capital of Ohio

As bizarre as it might seem, there are actually three creameries producing goat cheese and goat's milk products in Portage County. All three of them are run by women.

There's Lucky Penny, where Shelly and I are interning; MacKenzie Creamery, located in Hiram; and Ornery Goat, a smaller operation located in Edinburg, near Ravenna.

Last week while grocery shopping at Heinen's in Hudson, I spotted a few of MacKenzie's chevres in the cheese section, so I decided to pick one up. The next day, Shelly brought home some fresh chevre from the Lucky Penny creamery, and on Friday night, we had a "taste test" with my mom and dad.



To be honest, both chevres taste similar. There may be a slight difference in texture: the Lucky Penny chevre is perhaps creamier, more spreadable than MacKenzie. But both have a subtle lemony taste, and neither of them--especially when spread on a cracker--are overly funky or farmy.

It makes sense that they're so much alike: both come from grass farms close together, so the type of grass that the goats eat is probably the same. In sum, both are good, local products.

And speaking of local products, we stopped by the Hudson farmer's market on Saturday morning. The Lucky Penny booth (third one down in picture below) was sold out of all its product by the time we got there at 11:30.



So a lot of people are eating goat cheese around here. Cool.