It’s so fiendishly subtle; never overtly stated, nevertheless the inference stings. “Great cheese comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from California.” Now, PETA is going after these milk advosory board ads for their own lunatic reasons, which I will remain neutral about; but WE all know the real target of these ads – Wisconsin dairy farmers.
We in Wisconsin resent the implication that Wisconsin dairy cows are abused, miserable dung sacks compared to their California sun-bleached blonde beach heifer cousins. We love our cows as much as any Californian nouveau-cattle baron. Unfortunately the only statistic I could think to search for to to back up my claim involved comparative rates of bestiality, and that led up a path I didn’t care to follow anyway.
For years Federal dairy subsidy money was spent in proportion to the distance of the dairy operation from central Wisconsin – like rings around a bullseye target centered near Madison, the outermost ring (including California) getting the highest subsidies. The Californians got fat off the government teat and now they’re gunning for America’s Dairy Land.
We will fight you, California, to the last cow, the last calf, and the last dairy farmer if necessary!
I wouldn’t necassarily argue with the idea that California cow are happier, but tht hapier cows produce better cheese. Just like great art tends to come from troubled souls, so would great cheese come from distressd cows wishing to express their pain in the form of Chedder, Colby or even Montery Jack.
(I grew up in Wisconsin and liv ein California, so I am an “expert” :))
I was born in Wisconsin, cheese is in my blood … literally, it really hurts when it goes through the capillaries. (Beer is in my blood, too, but that just tickles).
Anyway, I will throw my support toward Wisconsin cows. As for making them stand in the snow up to their udders, well at least you know their milk will stay fresh. Besides when you think “cheese”, you just think “Wisconsin”. It’s the cheesiest!
I live in Florida and I just have a problem with California thinking they are better at everything, like oranges. And now they think they are better at cheese?! Pfft!! I think they are defintely better at being full of themselves.
By the way, cows don’t actually make cheese.
You guys in Wisconsin need to start making your own commercials, with not-so-subtle take-offs of the California ads. Such as …
[ul]
[li]Imply all Californians are members of the “drug culture” by having some of the cattle “smoke grass”.[/li][li]Or perhaps they could be “steroid abusers” (intersperse with pics of the Governator)[/li][li]Hi, Opal![/li][/ul]
Heheheheheee…I love that one. But not as much as the little calf saying to the cow “Grandma, tell us about where YOU grew up” …cut scene to a cow standing in a blizzard… Tiramisu, don’t be silly. We’re not trying to compete with anyone. We’re very happy being who we are. It’s people from every other state in the union that seem to feel the need to jump on the “Let’s trash California!” bandwagon. We’re not sure why, but we think it may have something to do with the fact that we’re not buried under 4 feet of snow every winter.
That’s too funny. The other day I saw one of those commercials and commented to my husband, “What a joke. Everybody knows that real cheese comes from Wisconsin.”
Now if Californians start wearing cheese on their heads, I’d be worried.
Doesn’t cold weather mean more butterfat, which means better cheese? Dingbat Californicators! After the election of Gov. Arnold, how can anybody take California seriously?
Of course the commercials always show California dairy country as the same place as do the car commericals: large, green, grassy hillocks, as if the entire state was like Sonoma. In reality, the dairy farms in such country was long ago bought out for housing subdivisions. Wisconsin farmers’ complaints are nothing compared to the poor 120-acre family farms of Idaho that now have to compete with California factory dairymen newly arrived with buy-out fortunes.
The typical CA dairy farm is more like Lancaster than Sonoma, with the cows spending all day under a sheet metal roof in the middle of the cheaper real estate in the desert. When Wisconsin farmers are able to talk their neighbors into milking their cows for a week so they can go to Disneyland, and take a side trip to scope out the competition, they’re often shocked by the seeming cruelty of this.
But actually, cows prefer the dry heat of CA to the heavy winters and humid summers of Wisconsin (could anyone but a mosquito love August in Dane County?), so long as the cows have plenty of water. And they do indeed have plenty of water, since the Sate of California and the Army Corps of Engineers have moved mountains to bring cheap, plentiful water to the desert. In Wisconsin, you pump your own water (if allowed by the Dept. of Natural Resources) and pay for the electricity to do it.
I say, if you can’t beat them, join them. Have your governor get over to China before Arnold goes there. If every Chinese citizen ate one slice of cheese a week, every Wisconsin farmer could pull a Mercedes Benz manure spreader.
My wife’s brother and sister-in-law are coming to visit us from Wisconsin later on this month. We are going to make sure they see those ads. In fact, I might go up right now and tape some so I’ll be sure to have them.
We recently traveled up the San Joaquin Valley where there are huge dairy farms full of Holstein milch cows. You never saw such a happy bunch. Laughing and giggling all day long.
I actually am from Sonoma, and you’re right, those commercials definitely take place there. There are certainly a lot of dairy farms in the area, and they are being bought out, but you’re only partially right about the subdivions - a lot of that land is now vineyard. Places that I remember cows grazing when I was a kid (back in nineteen dikkety two…we had to say dikkety because the Kaiser stole all our twenties) are now filled with neat rows of grapes. How much wine can Sonoma really produce before the market collapses?
Didn’t you guys hear? The national dairy checkoff program has been declared unconstitutional. The Dairy Advisory Board is going to have to find their cash from somewhere else, poor babies. $.15/hundredweight might not sound like much, but it adds up FAST. And when you’re only milking sixty or sixty-five cows, every single penny counts.
Sadly, the small family farm is going the way of the dodo – the Cochrans milk two hundred and that’s by no means LARGE. The thought of big business dairy scares the crap out of me.
And, guys, I hate to disillusion you, but most dairy farmers bring their cattle inside during the winter months and/or clear the snow out of the cowyards. You no more risk letting the business ends of your moneymakers get frostbitten than you would your own willie or tatas.
I can’t believe I just said “willie or tatas.” You’d think I’d be able to use the grown-up words by now.
Actually, we’ve already hit that scenario, hence “Two Buck Chuck” and the fall of wine prices.
I never thought much about those commercials coming from the East Coast to California. I felt pretty much the same, “whatever.” And there’s some damn good cheese coming out of Wisconsin. Seems a faint memory for me now, as being in California, and especially in Sonoma, where local is king, I hardly ever see it around.
But, there’s also some damn fine cheese coming out of California. And lots of other places.
I say the more cheese the better! Cheese for everyone! Bovines unite!
