Glorious Goat Cheeses at Restaurant Six89

Haystack Farms goat milk and cheese (TOP TO BOTTOM) Haystack Peak, Haystack Mountain Red Cloud, Aspen Ash, and Haystack Chile Jack

	Chef Mark Fischer
	Milk-and-honey-braised goat at Restaurant Six89

Historically, goats have gotten a raw deal. A song by Cake includes the lyric, “Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell.” In The Canterbury Tales, Chaucer wrote, “For all the world they stinken as a goat.” Goats have been accused of eating tin cans. (They don’t.) And then there’s this old Irish proverb: “If you put a silk dress on a goat, he is a goat still.”

But goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world. It is a succulent staple among many cultures, including Greek, Indian, North African and Mexican. And according to swampyacresfarm.com’s website, Random Goat Facts, 72 percent of the milk consumed worldwide comes from goats.

Now, goat meat is gaining a hoof-hold in the American culinary scene. New York magazine has referred to eating goat as a “trendlet,” and our area can claim to be the birthplace of America’s goat-meat movement.

But the novelty of eating goat is not the only draw. Goat is lower in fat than chicken and higher in protein than beef. And a goat’s ecological footprint is not nearly as troublesome as that of a cow in a factory farm. In fact, in terms of supporting an agricultural system that’s locally based, goat is as good as it gets.

The taste of goat’s milk is nearly indistinguishable from that of cow’s milk, however, goat’s milk is naturally homogenized, according to Random Goat Facts. The fat molecules in goat’s milk are fi ve times smaller than those in cow’s milk, which makes it easier for humans to digest. And because goat meat is very lean, it’s more nutritious than beef when it’s braised. The flavor has an earthy darkness somewhere between beef and lamb, depending on the age of the goat.

Yet when it comes to raising goats and then eating them, there’s always that fi ne line between livestock and living, breathing, cute animals. It’s all about the circle of life. Whenever I pick up the phone to order goat meat, goats die so that people can eat. Many of the lessons I’ve learned in the kitchen have come from screwing up a recipe. But when you screw up something using meat that you’ve “met,” the lesson becomes more profound.

At Restaurant Six89, we’ve always taken pride in being relevant and current, forward thinking, even. We’ve been serving goat for years. We get our animals from local ranchers, so we know where they’ve been and how they’ve been raised. From such dishes as goat nachos, made of meat from the Nubian herd, to milk-and-honey-braised North Fork goat (tender as a Disney movie) served with house-made chevre agnolotti, we’ve found that goat fits with what we do and how we like to do it. A 21-year resident of the Roaring Fork Valley, chef Mark Fischer owns and operates Restaurant Six89, Phat Thai, and The Pullman.