Foie gras. For some, the dish is
the apotheosis of good taste and a
festive meal. "The difficulty of the dish is
to establish the relationship between the flavor
of the wine and the cooking point of
each liver". Rather for others, the dish
embodies human decadence
and cruelty towards other
animals. "This Corrézien feeds 160 geese,
morning, noon and evening. These precise gestures,
he learned them since childhood
alongside his parents".
In fact, at a time when the issue
of animal rights is in the headlines,
the question arises: is consuming
fatty liver morally acceptable? if
you don't mind, I propose
you today to wonder about the
why of this practice to
perhaps ask the question whether it's
legitimate or not, when we know
the production conditions, to eat
foie gras. "Once you
have chosen your foie gras, salted it
to the point near to cook..." Let's go
today in History will tell us:
foie gras: a history of force-feeding.
Subtitles: salvadorarmandoul@gmail.com
"Here is the secret of truffled foie gras,
50 - 50, not
like in their crappy boxes".
Foie gras is part of a very
long gastronomic history. Foie
gras, whether goose or duck,
has been prepared from since Antiquity.
The first traces of goose breeding
and force-feeding is as old as
2500 BC. In the ancient
necropolis of Saqqara, near the
royal capital of Memphis, archaeologists have
discovered a bas-relief dating from the Age
of the Pyramids,
clearly showing men properly
force-feeding a flock of
geese. Tutankhamun, pharaoh of
the 18th Dynasty, was possibly the
first sovereign to have gorged himself on foie
gras. The fatty liver origin
isn't shrouded in any mystery.
Migratory birds are part of the diet of the
many ancient peoples living
along waterways, and therefore, close to
the migratory routes of these birds.
Geese, swans, ducks, storks,
and most migratory birds
are seen by several cultures to
be connections between human
beings and the abode of the gods high
in the sky. By observing migratory birds,
humans being could find that
these birds are eager
to eat in late fall
or late spring. Before their
migration, to nest or to
access better sources of
food during the bad season, the
weight of the birds increases
considerably. Animals slaughtered or
caught just before their flight
thus had a greatly enlarged
liver. When cooked, the rich flavor
and silky texture of its organs
was certainly noticed and
widely appreciated. Geese and other
plump birds have certainly been
appreciated for their fat, an excellent
fatty substance for cooking food.
Of course, without sophisticated force-feeding
techniques, the liver tasted by
the Egyptians would not have been as
smooth as those from today's farms.
However, in 400 BC, the
offering of fat geese
was considered sufficiently
luxurious to be offered to King
Agesilaus of Sparta during his
plenipotentiary visit to Egypt.
Eventually, the taste of fat geese
and their liver crosses the
Mediterranean to reach Greece and then Rome. The
ancients seem to have greatly
appreciated the delicacy, as did the
practice of force-feeding geese
as attested by a wide range of
literary sources. The Greeks and Romans
developed the practice of force-feeding
geese. They used dried figs
instead of grain. The idea is then to
develop livers with sweeter
and more delicate flavors, a technique
which is also described in De re coquinaria, which
means Culinary Art, a compilation
of Roman recipes dating from the late
4th century. In particular, we learn how to
fatten the liver of pigs. Force-feeding
has Egyptian roots, but the earliest
recipe for foie gras we have is
Roman. Fig-flavored foie gras
is so popular that
Pliny the Elder, the naturalist and
writer, argued that the recipe was
of Roman origin. Pliny attributed the
paternity of the dish to Metellus
Scipio, military governor of Syria
between 49 and 48 BC. Some researchers
maintain that the practice of force-feeding
arrived in southwestern
France during the Roman conquest of Gaul.
Others point out that the Jews
responsible for tending the goose
flocks were the first to learn the
technique of force-feeding while
in Egypt. The practice continued under
the Roman occupation of Judea.
From there, the foie gras would have
spread to other lands through
the Jewish diaspora. The rich taste
and buttery texture of foie gras
and goose fat offered devotees
an alternative, non-dairy cooking
fat. The kosher diet prohibits,
indeed mixing milk and meat. Gradually,
the practice of raising and
fattening geese and ducks
for their rich and tasty, as well
as for their fat, meat,
and feathers, will gradually
spread throughout Europe.
Over time, the taste for foie
gras spread widely. In 1472, the
librarian of Pope Sixtus IV,
Bartolomeo Sacchi, better known
as Platina, published in Rome a recipe
for goose liver in his De honesta
valuptate et valetudine. Sacchi's book is
nothing less than the first
cookbook
ever printed! In 1581, a book published
by Marxen Rumpolt, a chef
valued among the German high society
of the time, offered several recipes
based on foie gras, including a foie en croute,
a foie gras mousse and a sausage
combining foie gras, ham,
eggs, pepper and collard greens.
As Italians and Germans
feast on goose livers, the practice of
force-feeding geese to produce
meat, fat and liver grew in
importance in outhwestern
France. Two practical agricultural manuals
circulated at the time: Agriculture and the
Rustic House, by Charles-Etienne,
published in 1560, and The Theater
of Agriculture, published in 1600 by Olivier
de Serres. The two books
then present the best methods for
fattening geese. One of these
methods is
particularly strange but above all
cruel. It consists of gouging out bird's
eyes and pinning it to the ground by
the feet.
As feed specialist
Cathy K. Kaufman points out,
this practice must have been so stressful
that the animal would refuse
to feed.
Regardless, the production of foie
gras in France continues and gains
in popularity
to such an extent that foie gras will make
its appearance in the very first
French cookbook, titled in
a very unoriginal way, The
French Cook, published in 1651 by François
Pierre de la Varenne. The recipes
offered include a stew
that presents the first attempt
to combine foie gras with clover,
which is very common today.
During the reign of Louis XIV,
French cuisine flourished and fed
the sumptuous tables of Versailles.
In The Royal and Bourgeois Cook,
published in 1691, Francois Massialot,
who was to serve for a time as
chef to the king's brother, offered for
the first time a foie gras pie.
The recipe includes blanched foie gras,
onions, fresh herbs, bacon,
salt, pepper,
nutmeg, cloves and
limes, all encased in a puff
pastry and cover with sauce of
mashed foie gras, mutton broth,
shallots and lemon juice. With all
that, yeah. This is possibly the first
occurrence of a pâté de foie gras en
croute, a classic of French cuisine.
Thus, at the dawn of modernity
foie gras spread from its origins
in Egypt and the Levant
across Europe and then spread
to most parts of the world where
Europeans were established. In many cases,
French cuisine sets the standard
for the preparation of foie gras in
Europe, in England for example, but
also in America. In 1902, at the age of
56, Auguste Escoffier published his second
book and his first on food,
entitled The Culinary Guide.
Trained as both as chef and
restaurateur,
Escoffier gained experience at the
Grand Hotel de Monte-Carlo, under the
direction of César Ritz. Escoffier
and Ritz moved to London,
to the famous Savoy Hotel and,
in 1899, to the Carlton Hotel. Escoffier would
play a central role
in sets the
international standard by which French haute
cuisine was to be judged.
In his Food Guide, which is a
colossal sum, Escoffier undertakes to
codify haute cuisine. He established the
way in which chefs must
prepare the foie gras in Britain
and other countries which came to esteem
French cuisine. Among the 2973
recipes listed by Escoffier in his
book, foie gras appears 85 times.
In the second half of the 19th century,
foie gras gained the favor of the
elites in Great Britain
and the United States. Gastronomy is built
in hotels. The hotel fits in as a
new type of society, a society
based on money and commerce, and is
frequented by a cosmopolitan and
wealthy mobile elite. Several
chefs who run the kitchens of these
prestigious establishments are of course
French. Everyone eagerly read Escoffier
or the translations of
cookbooks written by the
most famous French chefs of the time, as Jules
Gouffé, Le Livre de Cuisine or
The Royal Cookery Book, chef of the Jockey Club
in Paris in 1867, or even Urbain Dubois,
author of Classic Cuisine,
Artistic Cuisine, and personal chef of
the Russian Ambassador, Prince Orloff and
the King of Prussia, William 1st. With
them too, the foie gras is central in
their cooking. In North America also
foie gras is spread on the
menu of hotels and restaurants. It
spread especially after the 1860s,
i.e, at the end of the Civil War in
the US. In the US precisely, the
taste of foie gras isn't
necessarily imported from France.
Farmers of German origin are
good fans of fatty goose and their
liver. In most German
butcher's shops located in
major towns on the East Coast or
in the Midwest, foie gras is offered.
In New York, the legendary restaurant
Delmonico offers foie gras on the
menu for its daily banquet,
making it the standard of festive meal.
Foie gras is found at all
major festive events:
balls, presidential inaugurations, etc.
Today, foie gras is more than a
dish, it's a symbol. It's a symbol
of wealth, luxury, haute cuisine and
affiliation, as we have seen,
dating back to the papal courts of the Renaissance
and even to the Sun King. It's also a
symbol of human sin and
cruelty to animals. Nowadays,
several chefs inspired by new
cuisine extravagances
offer a whole range of dishes
featuring foie gras: pizza with foie gras
covered with gold leaf and clover at
US $2000 at the Industry Restaurant
in New York, foie gras poutine
from pig's trotters in Montreal, and
foie gras and cherry ice cream
from Humphry Slocombe in San Francisco.
In short, we try a lot of things. But this
symbol of foie gras is also very
contested, sometimes in a violent way.
Several anti-animal cruelty
activists are targeting
establishments with foie
gras on their menus.
The fight of animal rights
protectors even rises to the
highest legislative bodies
in different countries. In short, a story
that continues from day to day. So,
through this, we can ask the question:
do we eat foie gras, yes or
no? Is the treatment given
to animals acceptable?
Well, that's not for me to answer.
Come on, it's over for today.
I hope you enjoyed it.
If so, you know what to do:
thums up, you share, you comment,
you bring the video to life. I'm Laurent
Turcot from History will tell
us and see you next time. Bye!