I've just come across this video of Dan Barber of the Blue Hill Farm complex and restaurant in upstate New York. Please give it a look, whether you're a foie gras fan or violently opposed.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_s_surprising_foie_gras_parable.html

It's why I'm raising again the whole topic of foie gras.

If you're a fan, you'd better order up some to poach and to eat  fast. Big Brother is trying to ban it as created out of torture. If the plight of the bird is our genuine concern, why aren't we more worried about the state of battery hen farming which feeds millions and millions daily? I mean, how often does anyone eat foie gras anyway? And do you really know how the bird is fattened by sympathetic producers of good foie gras? I don't dispute there are disreputable foie gras producers out there who need to be curbed. But Dan Barber's video is illuminating.

California State Senator John Burton has been anxious for some time 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. Now the focus is on the French and their production in the Dordogne. Clearly some has to be legislated against - those horrendous factories where gas station-style pumps shove maize down the throats of birds crushed together in cages. But artisanal producers of the foie gras sought out by top restaurateurs let their fowl run free in the fields where they voluntarily stuff themselves with corn. As they do in nature before undertaking any long distant flight...

Given the percentage of gourmands who can afford foie gras and the vast number of the populace that regularly feeds on cheap 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. Drive through the Dordogne in France, whose main business is ducks and geese, and you see the fowl waddling towards the farmer as fast as their swimming flippers can carry them, to get their fix of corn. If some of the farmers employ a funnel to introduce the corn, remember that the throats of geese and ducks don't include the design of our gag reflex mechanism. Birds present themselves voluntarily for a feed.

Bottom line, deal with the cruelty to chickens first. Then let's tackle any problems associated with the limited production of a luxury food. 

Confit-ed duck legs are one of the great French kitchen standbys, there to toss into a hot oven to roast with potatoes for unexpected guests. To ‘confit’ means to slow poach food in fat for preserving in sterilized jars. Originally, the creation of foie gras was a technique introduced into France by the Jews looking for some means of acquiring schmaltz - the rich fat from ducks and geese. It’s a process French country wives have been applying for centuries to fowl and cuts of pork. Duck confit - as well as enchaud de porc (pork confit, which is a larder regular of mine) is a worthwhile and impressive store cupboard standby and not hard to make. Obviously the more carefully raised the duck, the better its flavor. But I’ve done it jointing very cheap frozen ducks from H Mart. You can find previously frozen legs on their own at Maxim in Rockville, on the Pike. Or you might feel it's worth spending more on a duck from Whole Foods. To be sure of enough fat to cover the pieces, buy a carton of d'Artagnan's Duck Fat from Brookville Market or 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, where you will also find d'Artagnan's Duck Fat. They 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. 

Related Information...

A festive 'Special': Foie Gras Creme Caramel
Robert Wiedmaier - Owner-chef of Marcel's

Posted on Sunday 06th November 2011 in France, Blog, Information, Ingredients, Meat

1 Comment

1. Marianne Tshihamba

   First of all, thanks so much for this site Julie. As many times I have referred to your site for ethnic food sourcing in the DC area, I’m almost ashamed that I’ve never written to you before. Keep up the good work!
   
   Now about the foie gras - think one of the problems people have with foie gras is the perception that the geese suffer from the feeding practice of gavage. They do not. Geese, ducks and other waterfowl do not have a gag reflex. In fact what we perceive as their throat is actually an esophagus. The goose esophagus is difference the human esophagus in its ability to secrete mucus to help food and grain slide into a secondary pocket called a crop. The geese use the crop for food storage. In other words, we are not forcing food down the goose’s throat and into the stomach, but rather into the natural food storage cavity before it can be digested.
   
   Are there abuses? Absolutely. But they have nothing to do with the practice of gavage which is a practice that exists in nature. Goslings are fed this way by their mothers. It’s bad enough that we anthropomorphize waterfowl by ascribing them with human emotion, but transferring our physiology is going a little too far. I for one will continue to consume foie gras from responsible producers, but let’s not confuse the issue with arguments that don’t make biological sense.