Foie gras and confits

California State Senator John Burton is anxious to ban foie gras from the nation’s fine-dining menus on the grounds of cruelty. California has already set the date of 2012 for the end of that state’s business and New York State is studying the issue.

Given the percentage of gourmands who can afford foie gras and the vast number of the populace that regularly feeds on battery-farmed chicken, Senator Burton’s concerns might have been better directed at the hideous lives of those more common poor benighted birds. They go from egg to oven in 48 days, spending their short weeks in crates, standing in their faeces packed against others, their wings clipped and often their beaks too, to prevent them attacking the birds they're pressed so uncomfortably against.

But the massive industrial complex employed in battery farming techniques has more power in Washington than artisan enterprises raising geese and ducks, often by hand.

To ‘confit’ means to slow poach food in fat for preserving in sterilized jars. It’s a process French country wives have been applying for centuries to duck, geese and cuts of pork. Duck confit is a worthwhile and impressive store cupboard standby and not hard to make. I’ve done it with very cheap frozen ducks from H Mart but it’s worth spending more on a plumper duck from Whole Foods. To be sure of enough fat to cover the pieces, buy a jar of Goose or Duck Fat at Dean & DeLuca. The fat rendered by your first process will probably procue enough fat to roll you over to the next confit session, so you need by no more. (But if you never confit anything, buy the fat to roast potatoes in. It will raise them to celestial heights.)

Never ones to waste anything, the French also ‘confit’ duck gizzards (gésiers), using the same process as for the rest of the fowl. They are re-heated and served as Salade Gésiers over a mix of salad leaves tossed with a walnut oil vinaigrette and scattered with toasted walnuts. You can buy gizzards at H Mart and other oriental supermarkets.

Duck breasts for magrets and vacuum-packed duck confit, along with other duck products like the contentious foie gras of both duck and goose, are sold by D'Artagnan, tel 800 327 8426, who supply most of the local restaurants. Go to them on-line, or find some of their items like confit leg of duck and magret at Dean & DeLuca or Brookville Market.

They also sell frozen geese to order.

Hudson Valley Foie Gras is the other duck and goose product purveyor, found on line. Both of these also sell foie gras, fresh and prepared.

Wegmans in Centerville and Sterling, sells vacuum-packed confit de canard. If you want to make your own duck confit at a reasonable price, shop at one of the Asian supermarkets, like H Mart, for the frozen fowl. (If you see it there fresh, go for it.) But my own experiments have found it the frozen bird a little thin on meat. Spending the extra for a frozen duck from Whole Foods is worth it. Great Wall Supermarket, 2982 Gallows Rd., Merrifield, VA, 703 208 3320, sells it fresh, frozen, cured and smoked. 

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