Ethical and Natural Foie Gras

I've been thinking a lot about good food in the past year. Really, good food.  Everyone knows that there isn't much money in farming, but I'm pretty darn comfortable trading that reality with the fact that you can eat with the best of them.  From dining on rare Ossabaw Island pork to savoring slow-growing poulet rouge chicken and heritage turkeys, we definitely have enriched our lives when it comes to food ingredients.  We take for granted beautifully rich pastured eggs, grass fed beef and grass fed lamb.  We love making our own bacon, corned beef as well as preserving bounties from our garden.  And there's nothing (to us) like the taste of creamy, rich milk and butter from a Jersey cow.  Yes, all in all, life is really good.Gavage in Action

One of the foods I've been thinking a lot about this year is that controversial favorite, foie gras. To me and many others, it's one of the great taste/texture experiences to be found.  There's really nothing like it.  Of course, it gets lots of bad press, with help of the same extremists (go ahead and post a follow-up if you're reading this) that say you shouldn't eat any animal.  Their point is that the force feeding (gavage) is cruel and harms the ducks or geese.  On the other extreme is the farmers and producers who claim it does nothing of the sort.

Recently, I finished the interesting book The Foie Gras Wars by Chicago Tribune reporter Mark Caro.  It's an entertaining read into the innards (pun intended, so I hope you get it) of the foie gras industry.  Liz is reading it now and I'd encourage you to get a copy.  The book does a good job from an objective perspective of investigating foie gras production in an effort to find out if the criticism of the industry, such as it causes stress to the birds, exploding livers, etc. is based in fact of fiction.  In the end he concludes...wait, you may want to read the book so I'll stop there.

Not surprisingly, Anthony Bourdain has a different take on the subject as he, like most gastronomists, is determined to keep foie gras available to his sensory receptors.  Take a look at this video, and then continue reading this post.

Now, back to the story.  Bourdain doesn't think this is cruel. Some people do, some don't.  I don't feel I even need to comment on that as, how would I really know if the goose likes it or not?  However, I do know one thing for sure; it isn't NATURAL.  Not many geese or ducks running around in the woods with an auger in their throat. And we're all about truly mimicking nature at Nature's Harmony Farm, so clearly this approach would not be considered here.

But...even though I haven't had it in years, I LIKE foie gras!  So imagine my interest when, about a year ago, I read of a farmer in Spain who was perfecting the process of ethical (read: natural) foie gras!  Capitalizing on the natural instincts of the goose to gorge itself prior to migratory flights, the farmer simply...denies the bird that flight!  Actually, the goose couldn't fly anyway, but the instincts to gorge are strong. The farmer, Eduardo Sousa, supplies the geese with plenty of local delights, such as figs, olives, legumes and the like for the geese to eat, or not, at their leisure.  The foie gras that Sousa turns out is so good that it won first place in a French competition, causing the French to cry foul and exclaim that, since there was no gavage, it wasn't really foie gras.

Whatever.

In any event, I became quickly intrigued by marrying this idea with our value of raising heritage breed animals.  That's why, earlier this year, we began raising our own Pilgrim, Pomeranian, African and Toulouse geese.  And this winter, we'll plant a variety of fig and fruit trees for them to gorge themselves on, if they want, to go along with the persimmon trees we already have.  Once we hatch out the goslings in the spring, who knows, perhaps this time next year we can introduce ethical, natural foie gras to Georgia.

The goal of course is to continue the fine art of balancing producing amazingly delicious and healthy food by raising heritage breeds absolutely naturally.  Through this, we'll all learn, once again, what great food tastes like and how to prepare it. As a result, we will all make local, sustainable agriculture more than a movement; we'll create a lasting food heritage and culture.

For more on ethical foie gras, take a look at chef Dan Barber's parody below...very enjoyable!

ADDITION:  Thanks to Eric of Athens Locally Grown for providing this video link of the Spanish farm mentioned above:

Comments

[Eric Wagoner]

Janet Street Porter visited the farm in Spain for an episode of Season Three of Gordon Ramsay's "The F Word". Looks like YouTube has it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRBfATTeD7U

[Duane Marcus]

Wow! I really hope you suceed. I would love some naturally raised foie gras.
Here is chef Chris Cosentino's take on Foie Gras. A very interesting point of view. http://www.incanto.biz/letters_-_shock_and_foie.html

[Harrison]

I can't begin to explain how excited this makes me. Hopefully next Christmas I'll be able to make a local ethical foie gras terrine.

Good luck!

[Sam Burton]

Interesting. I'm suddenly hopeful.

[Leighann Garber]

I read about this (I think) here in France recently. It was in French, so I didn't get it all. But I got it that this particular kind of duck (I thought it was a duck. Maybe it WAS a goose) stuffs itself naturally. Which I thought was cool. At the same time, I got my first taste of fois gras, for free. We were house-sitting, and our host left us a little jar in the fridge. Amazing stuff, the texture of butter, or avocado, but much more luxurious. And very, very tasty. I could get used to that. But I felt guilty because of the implications of the whole thing.

I have a guilty relationship with meat/food in general anyway. I've learned so much about organic food and ethical production, all kinds of other things while WWOOFing, but I'm in a special situation now, and I can't afford to buy "good" food, and I lack the resources to raise my own to make sure it's treated and processed humanely, cleanly and without chemical junk. It really bothers me, because I love food, but I want to do the right thing, too. Grrrr...