Fish Family Farm

Battle: Fish Ice Cream
Fish Family Farm, Bolton

August 7, 2009

Surely at least a few of you reading this sentence are familiar with the oft-repeated joke on Iron Chef about fish ice cream. It all started with the original Japanese version when one of the original Iron Chefs made ice cream from fish. Perhaps it was Sakai with the cod fish roe… But I’m not sure. Nowadays, it seems every chef on the American version of the show heads towards the ice cream machine with some wacky non-traditional ingredient. It’s now become cliché, except when I cleverly use it in a CTMQ page title. Am I right people?

Anyway, some of the following is stuff I originally wrote about Fish Family Farm for its milk and cheese. I suggest you pop on over there to read about those products and the farm in general.

No, the Fish Family does not raise or sell fish. They raise cows and chickens and sell milk and ice cream and cheese, eggs and ice cream – and the results are awesome. Readers of this blog know I don’t toss that word around lightly. But this place really is a great little oasis of days gone by and of deliciousness.

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Another day with Damian looking for stuff to do… I decided, quite randomly, that we’d drive over to Bolton and check out the Fish Family Farm. My plan was simply to see the animals and maybe get an ice cream, for I didn’t really know what else they had to offer. Even though it’s in Bolton, which sounds so exotic and distant to many Nutmeggers, it’s right off of I-384 and I got there surprisingly fast.

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After checking out the chickens and cows and barns and stuff, we retired to the little retail area for some of their homemade ice cream. On my first visit, I was surprised to find out they made and sold the milk and cheese (both of which I bought of course. If you read the other page on CTMQ, you’ll see that even as a non-milk fan, I found their milk incredible.) And it’s that same milk from those same cows that the ice cream comes from. I bought Damian a little cup of black raspberry ice cream and we went outside to the bench to enjoy it together. Mmm-mm, delicious. Rich and creamy, just the way I like it. My son and I sort of just sat there for a while, enjoying the peacefulness of the farm (and Bolton in general), which was pretty nice.

At the time of our visit, I hadn’t yet begun my CTMQ list of Connecticut’s homemade ice cream joints. But no matter, I distinctly recall the Fish Family Farm product to be most excellent. Like I said, this is the rare farm dairy store place thing that is only a few minutes off a major highway – albeit at the end of that highway, but that’s okay. I somehow have found myself on Route 85 in Bolton on many occasions after this first time.

But then again, I’m the guy who goes to everything everywhere in the state, so I guess I don’t really count.

Depending on when you’re on the farm, you may catch the milking operation. You are welcome to observe the milking and bottling process right there in the barn. You can also watch the bottling and ice cream making processes through the observation window from the little shop area as well.

I strongly suggest you do it.

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I can’t recommend the Fish Family Farm enough. They are producing real locally made dairy products with superior flavor. Of course, the business model is not practical for mom and pop dairy operations, but we still need to appreciate what we can get from “hobby” farmers like Don Fish.

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Fish Family Farm
CTMQ’s More Great Homemade Ice Cream List

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