Eat in

For Ramona, a Toronto native with a professional past in advertising, it was all about the animals and her desire to raise them humanely, sustainably. For Collins, it was more about the meat. As avid a polo player as he is a foodie, Collins fell in love with the flavorful, grass-fed grilled meats, drizzled with garlic-herb chimichurri sauce, that he enjoyed on polo-playing (and watching) trips through Argentina. When it came time to select a breed of cattle for his own farm, he knew it had to be capable of triggering flavor epiphanies like the ones he experienced in Buenos Aires and Santa Rosa. No commercial cow—Angus, Hereford—would do.

     As chance would have it, he found that faraway flavor in a heritage breed—the Milking Devon, rescued from extinction in his very hometown of Williamsburg. At a time when the worldwide population of this once-popular English breed (which landed in New England in 1623) had dwindled to fewer than 500, the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation selected the Milking Devon as the pioneer breed in its Rare Breeds program.

     Gentle, friendly and intelligent, these beautiful chestnut-red cows (nicknamed “Ruby Reds”) are extremely adaptable and multi-functional (milk, beef, draft). Not only can they survive, but they can also thrive in climates as distant and different as New Mexico, New England, South Africa and, of course, Virginia.

      Blessed with good genes, the Milking Devon requires no grains or growth hormones: They finish and marble on an all-natural foraged diet of grass, grass and more grass, and their meat is consequently sweet, tender and incredibly consistent—not to mention incredibly healthy. As our “fast-food nation” is slowly learning, beef from ruminant, grass-fed cows is high in “good fats” (Omega 3), vitamin E and cancer-fighting CLA (conjugated linoleic acid). It’s also leaner and lower in calories than commercially raised (i.e. force-fed) beef.