As a Swiss taken in a delicate position between the Swiss-German side (never) and the French taste, I'd be interested in seeing what are your thoughts on the matter of foie gras, this delicacy that is obtained by force-feeding geese or ducks, especially in South-west France and Alsace...

My own personal opinion is clear, but I think I'll reveal it later

Cheerio!

Olivier

Poll result (58 votes) Never, period! (24 votes) Vote I won't refuse to be served some, but will not buy it. (9 votes) Vote Clearly yes! (25 votes) Vote

How about an Ortolan post?

Scott Chapin
Powder Springs, GA, USA
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Animal cruelty aside, this is a cholesterol bomb - it tastes good, but is it worth a heart attack? Since my cholesterol is low, I eat it very occasionally...

Tristan

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>Animal cruelty aside, this is a cholesterol bomb - it tastes
>good, but is it worth a heart attack? Since my cholesterol is
>low, I eat it very occasionally...

Let's not spread or perpetuate inaccurate health info.

Recent study findings bring to light foie gras’s wealth of poly- and mono-unsaturated fats, known for their benefits to coronary health. Foie gras is rich in oleic acid, 25.2g monounsaturated fatty acids and 4.5g polyunsaturated fatty acids, for only 12g of saturated fat (for 100g). Professor Serge Renaud, in the 1970s, is the researcher who discovered the role of mono- and poly-unsaturated fatty acids found in olive oil, colza oil and goose and duck fat, all of which contain important oleic acids that inhibit blood clotting.

The total amount of fat you eat, whether high or low, isn't really linked with disease. What really matters is the type of fat you eat.

The "bad" fats—saturated and trans fats—increase the risk for certain diseases. The "good" fats—monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats—lower disease risk. The key to a healthy diet is to substitute good fats for bad fats—and to avoid trans fats. Check any nutritional breakdown of real foie gras (not the supermarket junk that is marketed as foie gras) and you'll find it loaded with UNsaturated fats - the good stuff.

Although it is still important to limit the amount of cholesterol you eat, especially if you have diabetes, dietary cholesterol isn't nearly the villain it's been portrayed to be. Cholesterol in the bloodstream is what's most important. And the biggest influence on blood cholesterol level is the mix of fats in your diet—not the amount of cholesterol you eat in your food.

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Yep.... (Still tasting some leftovers with a Montbazillac... hips) !!!

Jacques

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Santé, Jacques!

The list of what is good to be drunk with foie gras would take us too far... but let's get started: Sauternes, Jurançon, Montbazillac, Gewürztraminer, some Rieslings, Eiswein... and plenty of local specialities that are in the same spirit... Hips to you too!

Olivier Rychner
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Ah! You mention such good wines! That being the case, I just might have to try some foie gras even though it is a delicacy I have avoided for "no logical" reason, but mostly based on some unresearched, prejuditial "hear-say." The wine makes the meal!

jdroach, a Milwaukee area and sometimes Chicago area Nikonian.





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The wine makes the meal!

You may find this article of interest:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/frontal-cortex/2012/06/wine-taste.html

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Interesting article but I could not agree with it because there is a wide variance in wines and how the taste from the different regions of the world. so you know everybody has their prejudices.

jdroach, a Milwaukee area and sometimes Chicago area Nikonian.





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Well said Howard.

I am sick to death of being told half truths by public health zealots who insist on telling me how to live my life - and they most often do it from a lofty public funded institutions that depend on maintaining fear to ensure a continued flow of funds to keep them employed.

One recent example - a blazing headline that said that "there is a 50% increased chance of cancer if you ...." The reality? Risk increased from 0.1 deaths /100,000 to 0.15. Time for another Inquisition of a different type for them and the media that provide unbalanced information.

John
Perth Nikonian
Western Australia

>One recent example - a blazing headline that said that
>"there is a 50% increased chance of cancer if you
>...." The reality? Risk increased from 0.1 deaths
>/100,000 to 0.15. Time for another Inquisition of a different
>type for them and the media that provide unbalanced
>information.

That's a 'wonderful' example of the way in which print, broadcast and web media misstate statistical change from time to time. Either the reporters, editors and bloggers who disseminate that sort of nonsense are morons, or they're deliberately creating misleading information, or they're juicing a story without understanding the consequences of doing so, or they're just parroting without any skeptical thinking, or some combination of all four.

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Scary heath stories are the stock in trade of the media to increase circulation or improve ratings. I wish we could change it.

I once ran a large news print/publishing business. On quiet news days out would always come the "talking heads" files. These are the researchers, zealots, eminent "health personalities" that had reputation for saying scary things well at the drop of a hat. Beware the statement "a cure could be available within 5 years" The sub text is "please send me some funding to keep me in a job"

John
Perth Nikonian
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Howard
I agree that any statistics that appear in the media (or anywhere else for that matter) are suspect. There is seldom given any real information on how the data was arrived at. The number of respondents or size of the data base (and how many people who were contacted who did not respond) and the validity of the data base (how representative it was) can have an effect on the results. Added to this is how truthful the responses were, and much of the information is highly suspect. Scientic analysis is not always much better when the the data involve statistical analysis, as many of the researchers do not have enough math background to do a properly objective analysis.

Matthew

Matthew - Reading and education defeat all evils (well, most of them anyway). As math skills and science knowledge decline, so too does the prevalence of skeptical thinking. It all makes for a marketer's dream-come-true (no matter what's being purveyed).

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Gavage is a 4,000 year old practice. Suddenly (the past ten or fifteen years or so) people are alarmed about it? Meh!

Enjoy your foie gras - your real foie gras, not the supermarket, non-Alsace junk containing who-knows-what.

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Thanks all for your informed and sometimes funny participation (Scott, let's not make matters worse for now ).

Reading you, I find myself in the cruel lot, looking forward to eating it in any form... and "tant ####" (1) for the suffering animals, I must add! There was some (mi-cuit au torchon) last Sunday, there will be some next Saturday, and then I'll be calm(er) for some time until the next occasion arises!

Olivier Rychner

(1) is there a meaning for P-I-S in English that the automated censors have to work on?

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As I educate myself, I'm not so sure it is cruel. I didn't know that ducks don't have a gag reflex. Perhaps they think they have been happily fed? Also, the detractors are vegans. Being a hunter and fisherman ( yes, I filet fish alive), I have no problem with ingesting meat!

Scott Chapin
Powder Springs, GA, USA
Nikonians Team Member

Look no further than Chicago Illinois. They baned the sale,and it became a free condiment for hot dogs, but no ketchup.

The ban was seen as legislation gone bad and was finally repealed.

As to the subject of harsh treatment of animals, stock yards have not progressed very much from those written about by the Chicago Stockyards in The Jungle. And yes the branch of the Chicago River that passed by Chicago's Union Stock Yard is still bubbling.

George
My Nikonian Galleries

As a meatetarian I have to say yes... mmm meat!

The thought that it's cruel to over feed fowl and watch their livers enlarge is kind of funny when you look at the fast food industry and the average North American...

Happy munching,

Howard

Will shoot for fame...fun...food... a heck I'll shoot anytime anywhere.

I voted for #2 ("I won't refuse to be served some, but will not buy it.").

I've been a butcher and enjoy meat off and on and don't get squeamish when killing animals, but foie gras is beyond the bounds of my morals. I wouldn't refuse it when served but I try not to support the practice.

...Mike

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Wow...I didn't know there was a foie gras controversy up and above the normal "animal rights" thing. How can it be more outrageous then how chickens are raised in mass production facilities? Please educate me.

Aren't they kind of small and tedious to eat??? I am a red meat kind of guy.. That said....I have been in situations (military) that you get so hungry you will eat anything without thinking of the moral animal rights implications.

Mel
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Hi Mel!

>Aren't they kind of small and tedious to eat??? I am a red
>meat kind of guy..

Red meat man here too! Just something: foie gras is not like chicken livers at all! One foie gras, i.e. the whole liver of a gavé duck, can weigh a pound (500g) easily! It is then either boiled in glasses for conservation or cut into slices and grilled quickly on a very hot pan... I'm at breakfast time as I'm typing, but I can tell you my mouth is watery all of a sudden!

Cheerio,

Olivier Rychner
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On a related topic, if anyone knows where I can purchase a recording of the "I hate liver" song done by the Second City comic troupe in the 1970's, please drop me a note.

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I love foie gras, but wonder if anyone still eats cretons?

I believe it's a Quebec speciality. I used to eat it at my grandfathers - who was a Québécois - when I was little; it must be a real cholesterol bomb since it is mostly pork fat - but so good!

Oh, and I just remembered how he'd broil the skin of a pork belly until it would puff up into a delicious, crispy, popcorn-like treat, yummy!!!

Of course, the best things to eat are always bad for you - it's just the way the universe works I suppose!

Phil
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>I love foie gras, but wonder if anyone still eats cretons?
>
>I believe it's a Quebec speciality. I used to eat it at my
>grandfathers - who was a Québécois - when I was little; it
>must be a real cholesterol bomb since it is mostly pork fat -
>but so good!

Again with the cholesterol bomb? No way! Cretons spread on crusty, fresh, toasted pain de ménage early in the morning is heaven on earth. Minced pork, blended with minced onions and spices is not bad for you/us/them! Cretons has lots and lots of good stuff in it. Bon apetit!

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As I'm now spending around a third of the year in southwest France it would be pretty hard to avoid it!
I'm rather partial to it but try and ration how often I eat it. Hmm, I wish you hadn't got me thinking about it Olivier... I'm starting to feel peckish.
Derek

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Thanks Howard, think I'll pick some up today!!!

Phil
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To quote Jessica Simpson, I don't know what it is, but I so want some!

Duck (or goose) fat rules! I was in Sarlet, France two years ago and enjoyed the foie gras especially with some good French bread and a nice white wine. Sarlet and the surrounding areas does produce a lot of the foie gras. Not sure if it is one of the major foie gras producing areas in France. There were lots of stores in Sarlet where you could buy the foie gras (not cheap) and also have it shipped to the US.

Gene

Vegetarian. Hated liver as a kid. Easy answer.

I heard a radio show on some guy who raised "wild" geese for this purpose. No fences, no controlled feeding, no controlled foodstuffs. Apparently, the wild goose version is like a gozillion times tastier and better in all respects.


Fried Elliott * Dallas TX USA * www.friedbits.com
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>Vegetarian. Hated liver as a kid. Easy answer.

>I heard a radio show on some guy who raised "wild"
>geese for this purpose. No fences, no controlled feeding, no
>controlled foodstuffs. Apparently, the wild goose version is
>like a gozillion times tastier and better in all respects.

. . . and as a result it's not really foie gras. I've tasted this stuff supposedly developed in the 'wild' and it's just not even close to real foie gras. Anybody who claims otherwise either doesn't have a taste for the real thing or has never actually tasted the real thing.

As for being a vegetarian, congratulations. Be healthy, be well. Anyway, real foie gras isn't just liver. Foie gras is to regular liver as a Popeye's burger is to USDA "AAA" Prime Rib served at John's in San Francisco. There's just no comparison.

This thread is totally wasted on a vegetarian obviously.

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>This thread is totally wasted on a vegetarian obviously.

Vegetarian here too, for the past 15 years. It's not that I love animals. It's that I hate vegetables!

But as a kid, ate and loved liver, liverwurst, cow tongue, cretons...

Peter

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>Yeah I eat babies too; not to mention kittens and puppies...

Kittens? Still got to try this one

Seriously, that comment probably got wasted on me somehow. Humour? Sarcasm?

And no indeed, there is nothing common between liver and foie gras. I hate liver in general and in particular. One of my worst culinary memory, if not the worst I have is liver, actually. It was in the fall of 1992 as I was serving in the army. Visibly, that day, the cooks had outdone themselves and cooked something good, and even the pasta was just made to perfection. I tasted them with the rich, creamy sauce: wonderful. Then, a piece of the meat in the sauce: deer liver!!!!!!!!!!!

But foie gras is something smooth, sugary (well, a liver is meant to be, probably), and if served just off the pan with some "fleur de sel", in whole slices, or in smaller pieces with caramelled apples, it does to the tastebuds and to the rest of the body something that I can not describe not for want of words but because I don't want to alert CyberNanny

Olivier Rychner
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Now I have to hunt down a French restaurant. I've got to try it.

There is a butcher near me that prepares East European meats. I love his geraüsherte Leberwurst and I never liked liver previously. Maybe foie gras is like it but better?

Scott Chapin
Powder Springs, GA, USA
Nikonians Team Member

Yes, liver is truly gross. I remember being chased by my parents, as a child; they were holding a piece of liver on the end of a fork, and I ended up hiding behind the furnance in the basement, to avoid having to eat it. Now that I think of it, we were also forced to swallow cod liver oil, by the spoon, not In a capsule - I think I'd prefer the liver - raw - over cod liver oil.

The only other organ meat I've knowingly eaten is kidney, in a kidney stew, and it was only to be polite to a former step-mother in law.

Wonderful memories!

Phil
A Canadian Nikonian
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Attachment #1, ( file)

Hmmm...

A kidney, roasted whole with a slit full of butter, garlic and fresh herbs... We're again straying, but that is fine as well, although I am not too keen on other "organ meats"!

Olivier Rychner
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Olivier,

Back when I used to hunt a lot as a younger guy my buddies and I always fried up the liver of deer and elk when we made a kill. It was always the best meal of the trip. Simply fried in butter with sauteed onions, salt and pepper and some scotch out of a tin cup it was heaven. Sorry your experience was not good, it was probably the army cook's fault.

Ernesto Santos

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Hi Ernesto!

> Sorry your experience was not
>good, it was probably the army cook's fault.

Ready to believe you on that! Though I have in those days met some good military cooks, the fare was usually quite under what I would consider "fair par"...

Olivier Rychner
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Bump, because I found this thread while pruning my subscription list and also because I had a encounter with some foie gras again last week-end... an entrée made of four variations of foie gras: just a slice of it, grilled, served with some sea salt; some of it served boiled but cold, with toast and a chutney to die for; then the special parts: a "crème brûlée" or "crème catalane" made with it, complete with the sugar crust, and just a sweet, a mouthful of foie gras covered in a crust of dark chocolate with red pepper in it...

Some glasses of good wine on top of it and the suprême de pintade that followed (also with some foie gras, btw) made for a heavenly supper!

Olivier Rychner
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I think I heard last week that California has outlawed it. You must consider that it was California though.

Scott Chapin
Powder Springs, GA, USA
Nikonians Team Member

Yes, Scott... the law come into strength on July 1. This very next July 1, which means that foie gras-curious people still have 17 days to find some, if still feasible, before becoming outlaws! Hurry! I foresee a smuggling trend for after that date, maybe along the coast from Canada through Washington State and Oregon down to San Francisco? Who'll be the Al Capone of foie gras? And who'll be his Eliott Ness?

I have known for quite a long time that when I at last decide to travel to and through the USA, culinary reasons will not be the front reasons for that... but this debate is taking incredible proportions:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05E3D91F38F935A35753C1A9629C8B63 (2004)

and

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-01-foie-gras_x.htm (2006)

I must say that while I understand - but of course don't share - some of the arguments of the "anti" camp, resorting to violence in such a matter (the article of the NYTimes) seems as relevant as the 30-years war if studied only from a religious point of view... Why not go entirely quorn or tofu?

It's true that the chicken used in nuggets is not force-fed, but the conditions in which the animals spend their short life on earth must make the ones the ducks have look like heaven on earth! And antibiotics-fed beef, and mutton, I mean sheep, laden by the zillion on ships from Australia to the Gulf countries... examples are legion.

But then there must be issues of a somehow greater urgency...

Olivier Rychner
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Chicago banned the sale, so some restaurants then gave it away or added as a condiment on a hot dog. They have since revisited this and repealed the law. This is let the free market make the decision. If one does not like it, then do not order it or avoid the restaurant that serves it.

Have you ever seen what goes on in a livestock feed yard and meat processing plant?

The is a section of the Chicago River that pass where the Union Stockyards once stood. There are still bubbles coming from the renderings dumped into the river when that activity was not banned. This is what Upton Sinclair wrote about in The Jungle and brought about the FDA in the U.S.

Some things have changed but maybe not by much.

Anybody ever eat Pink Slime?

George
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As Scott mentioned in a previous post, effective July 1, 2012 foie gras will be banned for sale in stores and/or restaurants in Califronia. California’s budget is $15 billion in the red. Meanwhile the legislator and governor fiddle while California fiscal train wreak goes over the cliff. Yet they have time to pass such frivolous (in my opinion) laws.
Since I live close to the State of Nevada I will have to buy my foie gras in Nevada. California has had for years agricultural inspection stations at the stateline border to inspect for any fruits and vegetables being brought into the State. Years ago they would do a more thorough job of inspecting for fruits and vegetables. Now the only vehicles not waived through are those with out-of-state license plates. I wonder if the inspectors will begin stopping all vehicles and start searching for and confiscating foie gras?
Gene

If you raise the goose and force-feed it yourself, slaughter it and prepare the pate etc then fine.. but meat eaters who do nothing more than pull up to a fast food window or lumber down the supermarket aisles are perpetuating an industrial-scale tragedy on other sentient creatures and the biosphere as a whole. It's appalling and frankly will be part and parcel of our civilization's eventual collapse. Sound melodramatic? It's unfolding before our eyes.

And Bloomberg won't let New Yorkers drink soda! It is appalling. Just leave me one, you control freaks ( not aimed at you). I think you agree anyway.

Scott Chapin
Powder Springs, GA, USA
Nikonians Team Member