If you frequent the Saturday Red Stick Farmers Market in downtown Baton Rouge, you’ve no doubt noticed the line of patrons extending from the Belle Écorce farmstead cheese booth.
You might have even stood among the patient faithful yourself, waiting for an edible flower-topped log of chèvre while the effusive cheesemaker, Wanda Barras, takes time to answer every question. Unruffled by the building crowd, Barras delights in hearing feedback from regulars, who are quick to share how they put her award-winning cheese to use.
As 225 details in a feature from the current issue, Barras—better known to many as “the Goat Lady”—has been making and selling farmstead cheese from her St. Martinville home since 2003. It is legally deemed “farmstead” because Barras produces her line of cheeses with milk from a resident herd of Nubian and LaMancha goats.
Most cheesemakers around the country purchase milk rather than go to the trouble of also running a dairy farm, but not Barras, who has elevated cheesemaking—rare in the hot, humid Deep South—to a high art.
Barras was initially drawn to cheesemaking because of her love for animals. In 1999, she bought a couple of LaMancha goats and brought them home to her farm, where she was also raising exotic birds and hairless cats. Today, Barras keeps a herd of about 100 LaMancha and Nubian goats, 40 of which are actively milked to produce the creamy, tangy collection of chèvres for which she is known.
Recently, Barras also added a few Jersey cows to the operation, and she has expanded her board of fare to include cow’s milk cheeses. She makes three different aged blue cheeses, camembert and an aged gouda that is sometimes made with both cow’s and goat’s milk and flavored with beer.
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