Foie gras

[Jpat]

i love gordon ramsey hes a good mentor

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Unfortunately there is no way to make the real »foie gras« from any bird in an ethical or humane way: »Foie Gras« is French for »Fat Liver« and to produce the correct taste of this "delicacy" it is necessary to overfeed and fatten up geese or ducks in an unnatural way. No bird would voluntarily gobble down that amount of food, not even Blanca Duck.

You can however produce »duck liver pate« from the livers of your butchered ducks, there are plenty of recipes available in the internet, just enter "duck liver pate" into the search-engine of your choice and start drooling…

I have tried »foie gras« many years ago, before i knew about the horrible way it is produced and i was quite disappointed: It surely melts in your mouth, because it's mostly fat (duck/geese lard) and tastes like nothing, with a faint aftertaste of liver. Personally i prefer the strong livery-taste of a good pate.

 

[Ratchnick]

I'm not really a supporter of foie gras but i think some of you are missing the point. The ducks are fed to fatten the liver, enlargement is just a happy byproduct of that. There is a big difference between normal and fattened liver. Geese and ducks naturaly store extra fat in the liver just before they migrate, that is how humaine foie gras is produced. Its not really accurate to say they are tortured to death, as that implies that the force feeding kills them, which is not the intent and rarely the outcome.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

As i write in your other thread:

Unfortunately there is no way to make the real »foie gras« from any bird in an ethical or humane way: »Foie Gras« is French for »Fat Liver« and to produce the correct taste of this "delicacy" it is necessary to overfeed and fatten up geese or ducks in an unnatural way. No bird would voluntarily gobble down that amount of food, not even Blanca Duck.

You can however produce »duck liver pate« from the livers of your butchered ducks, there are plenty of recipes available in the internet, just enter "duck liver pate" into the search-engine of your choice and start drooling…

I have tried »foie gras« many years ago, before i knew about the horrible way it is produced and i was quite disappointed: It surely melts in your mouth, because it's mostly fat (duck/geese lard) and tastes like nothing, with a faint aftertaste of liver. Personally i prefer the strong livery-taste of a good pate.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Here is where i draw my personal line:

• Supply the ducks/gees with as much food as they like to eat on their own:
  => That's fine with me
• Slide a tube down their throat and force food down into their stomach:
  => I consider cruel

But as said that is my personal opinion, said as the foody i am. I cannot enjoy even the most precious food if i know that an animal had to endure cruelty to produce it.

 

[Miss Lydia]

My point exactly @WannaBeHillBilly maybe force feeding doesn’t out right kill them but how cruel to force feed the way I have read foie gras is produced. Just my opinion my strong opinion but still just mine.

 

[blackandtan]

Everyone is welcome to their opinions, but @Ratchnick i wonder what is your definition of torture? No perhaps it’s inaccurate to say that they are “tortured to death” via massive force feeding and nailing them to the floor so they can’t move away from the tube in their throat, but then I wouldn’t call that “humane treatment “ either

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Again, my personal opinion! I also don't like the fact that the ducks or geese are being kept in "individual cages" during the final fattening period.
"Individual cage" sounds comfortable like a room all for yourself in the hospital, when in fact:

Picture from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foie_gras#Physiological_basis
I buy chicken meat from either local farmers or free-ranged chickens - which doesn't mean happy chickens running through the woods, but we all have to compromise somewhere - so why should i buy something that is made from a bird being kept in a feeding harness for weeks?

 

[Miss Lydia]

 

[gtaus]

My question would be, can you make proper foie gras from regular livers, or *must* they be force-fed (gavage is it called?) in order to make the livers fattier?

If you lived in France, there is only one way to make foie gras, and that is by force feeding the duck or goose. But the French would not consider American "cheese" squeezed out of a plastic tube as real cheese. Nor would the Italians consider American spaghetti-O's from a can as real pasta. Point is, you can call just about anything any name, but it might not be considered "real" by others with a long cultural tie to that food.

If the former, I don't see why not, as long as you like eating duck. If the latter, that falls into animal cruelty in my world view.

I eat meat products, and I guess I don't really give much thought to the cruelty in the process. I eat chickens that have been breed and fed to live only 8-10 weeks before they are butchered for the table, or the bird is too heavy to even support itself on it's own legs. I eat hamburgers from cows that are fed so heavily that if not butchered at a young age they would probably die of a heart attack in a few more months. I drink milk from cows breed to produce so much milk, that their bones are so brittle they have to be put down years before their natural lives would/could have been. In my world view, force feeding a goose to make the liver fat and then butchering the bird at 120 days is not much more cruel than most of the other meat products I eat.

I grew up in a small rural town surrounded by small farms. Farmers raised livestock for the purpose of butchering the animals at the appropriate age. That is how they supported their families and fed America. I, too, raised rabbits for meat when I was young. Every boy my age had one or more hunting rifles and/or shotguns. My grandfather only had one hunting rule for us kids; "If you kill it, you eat it." All was good as long as you had respect for the life you took. But I understand that not everybody has that type of connection with the food they eat. I can understand how force feeding an animal leading up to butchering it might be considered cruel by some people.