Getting Creamed in Cornwall

We walk off our clotted cream and strawberry orgy on St. Ives's cobbled streets, stopping by galleries that display paintings, ceramics and handmade clothing.

The summer light lingers late in England and, after surviving a particularly hair-raising wisp of a road, we spend the evening's last rays seated in a cliff-top amphitheater looking out to sea. We are near Land's End, the most westerly bit of this entire country, watching a play at the Minack Theatre. The performance is entertaining, but my eyes keep drifting out to the cobalt waters and rocky headlands burnished by the final shafts of sun that shine on England.

The next morning, we're in luck. Will Bowman of Gwavas Jersey Farm rings up and tells us to come on over. His farm is only six miles away, down toward England's most southerly point, on the Lizard Peninsula.

Gwavas is a father-and-son operation: 90 Jersey cows, a handful of employees and Wiggles, the world's cutest Jack Russell terrier, housed on a farmstead that was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Will, who runs the dairy while his father watches the cows, takes us on a tour of the fields and the dairy buildings. "I'm not what most people around here would call a conventional farmer," he confides, and I have to agree: He's sporting shorts, sneakers and a soccer jersey.

"It's a bit more interesting than just farming," he says, explaining why he started making clotted cream and yogurt 12 years ago, "because it's a different challenge every day. If you enjoy yourself, you can make it a little bit more unusual; if you've got the passion, you can make it that much better."

Will confirms my research about Jersey cows -- that their milk has more cream (5 percent vs. 4 percent or less for other breeds) -- but that's not all. "It also has more lactose, more protein, more solids in general," he says.

Despite the mysterious nature of clotted cream (do a Google search and you come up with all sorts of conflicting recipes, including some calling for sour cream), it turns out to be fairly straightforward. "It's a simple way of doing something with milk, but it has to be precise," Will explains.

Cream is separated from pasteurized milk by a centrifuge system, then placed in large shallow pans that are heated to 194 degrees, not quite boiling, for an hour. "Scalding it the traditional way gives it more color and more flavor," Will says. Water evaporates, the cream thickens and a thin crust forms on the top. Then it cools, rests and thickens more.

We watch as a white-coated worker scoops the finished product into tubs. It's a deep golden color, denser in some places, a bit runnier in others. "It's a moving product," Will says. "As it gets older, it will thicken."

He picks up a tub and invites us to have a taste. We sit on a picnic table outside his weathered stone house, while Wiggles and a resident cat snooze nearby in the sun.

Digging a spoon into the clotted cream, I realize I'm going to be mainlining the stuff: no scones, no berries. But one bite and I know I've found clotted cream nirvana. The textures roll across my tongue, buttery, rich and intense. It seems as if I'm devouring the distilled essence of the Cornish landscape, the green that overgrows stone fences and nearly chokes the roads.

"Good milk," Will says by way of explanation, "has just got a fresh taste to it, and the sweeter the grass, the sweeter the milk." I ask if we can visit the cows that produced this wonder, and Will leads us to pastures bordered on one side by the ocean.

"Thank you, ladies!" I shout, holding up my tub of clotted cream, as the nosy bovines come over to investigate us. They are fawn-colored, with little topknots between their ears. "Each one has a different hairdo," Will points out, grinning.

Surveying the fields rimmed by wild foxgloves and bright-pink thistles, he says: "We don't need any more than what we've got around us. There are lots of people who don't have it so good." That includes clotted cream lovers who don't live in Cornwall; preferring a personal relationship with customers, Will refuses to sell his product outside its borders.

After our visit, we drive a few miles to Kynance Cove, considered one of Cornwall's most beautiful spots. I hike across the cliffs clutching my tub of Gwavas clotted cream. There is a little cafe at the end of the trail, and I'm sure it will have scones.

As we sit outside, looking down at the turquoise ocean bashing and frothing around craggy black rocks, I slather the cream over a warm scone. The heck with posh hotel tearooms. This is the best clotted cream I've ever tasted, and this spot, right here, is the best possible place to eat it.

Gayle Keck last wrote for Travel about Luang Prabang, Laos.