The foie gras is mets made up exclusively of Foie S (seasoned) of duck S or Oie S which was gavés so that their liver becomes of size largely higher than the normal.

Its origin goes up with the old Egypt, but it is now produced mainly in France where it consumed especially at the time of meal of festivals.

The production of foie gras is the object of controversies relating on the consequences of the cramming for the wellbeing of the animals and to the importance to be granted to this wellbeing. The cramming, necessary to obtaining the foie gras, is interdict in the majority of the countries of Europe.

History

Its history goes up in old Egypt (frescos of 4.500 years old tombs to Saqqarah). The Egyptians gavaient several species of birds, of which geese, using granules of grains roasts and humidified. However, we have any proof of the use of the foie gras in the supply Egypt (neither texts, nor images with the museum of Cairo and the museum of Louvre): many the ancients like the Chinese for 4000 years or in the Western South of France until the 19th century had practiced the Gavage geese and ducks to have animals with fatty flesh (grease for conservation, light and kitchen) and not to obtain foie gras. Later the practice extended in all the area the Mediterranean. The Greek poet Cratinos evokes it with

The practice continued under the Roman Empire. Pline Old the evokes the goose cramming using Figue S dried. The produced liver was called Jecur ficatum , which one literally translates by “liver with figs”. The old ones preserved only the term ficatum or fig for its denomination, which gave the form figido to the 8th century, then fedie , feie with and finally “liver”. However, this root is found only in French and Italian.

The tradition of the foie gras remained after the fall of the Roman Empire in Central Europe, in the Jewish communities. The Jews frequently used the Graisse of goose for cooking, some Beurre S or the Saindoux being prohibited to them, and the olive oils and Sésame difficult to obtain in Central Europe and west. We do not have any proof (texts, images) of the practice of the cramming and the use of the foie gras in South-west of France in the Middle Ages and under the Rebirth.

Thus, so traditionally, two French areas, South-west and the Alsace, dispute the paternity of this mets of festival, the origin of the foie gras is actually very old.

The Corn being originating in Central America, the cramming with corn arrived tardily.

Today

The first producer country is the France.
  • 74% of the worldwide production (23 670 tons in 2004, 97% out of duck and the goose remainder),

Production Frenchwoman 2005, Statistical official (sources: AGRESTE-SCEES, ministry for Agriculture, France):
France: 18.846 tons, (of which Moors: 4.794 T, Yrénées-Atlantiques: 2.947 T, Gers: 2.059 T, the Vendée: 1.534 T, the Dordogne: 1.043 T, Lot-et-Garonne: 1.017 T, Two-Sevres: 660 T, Hautes-Pyrénées: 615 T, Batch: 527 T, Loire-Atlantique: 524 T)

Worldwide production 2004:
France: 17.945 T,
Hungary: 2.600 T,
Bulgaria: 2.000 T,
: 500 T (production prohibited since 2005),
Spain: 500 T,
others: 570 T,
total world 2004:23 670 tons.

Manufacturing method

The birds do not chew their food and have a very elastic gosier who allows them to store of them great quantities in the esophagus while waiting to be digested in the Estomac (a whole fish, for example).

The geese and ducks intended for the production of foie gras are initially nourished of grass, which hardens the esophagus, then of a mode containing starch which brings the liver to half of its final size. Finally the completion comes from fattening , at the time which one inserts food, of corn primarily, using a metal tube in the throat of the animal (delicately because a wound can ruin all the process), several times per day.

This process exploits a natural and completely reversible phenomenon , clean with the migratory birds, which store grease in their Foie which becomes fatty in nature in preparation of the migrations of winter. This phenomenon is called hepatic Stéatose. This phenomenon would already have been observed by the former Egyptians: the Foie is put then at Hypertrophie R. a wild duck can thus double its weight by storing grease in its liver. However, the ducks used for the production of foie gras in France today (95% of the foie gras) do not result from migrating species: they are ducks " mulards" , i.e. of sterile hybrid ducks resulting from a crossing between two different species: the duck common Beijing, originating in China of the South, and the musk duck, originating in the high-basin of Amazonia (Peru-Brazil). In their medium of origin, these two species are completely sedentary and never migrated (Work Inra Nouzilly).

Until in the years 1920-1930 one used one to gorgeoir made up of simple a Entonnoir with a rather long pipe and a wood stem whose form made it possible to push the grains of Maïs towards the depth of the Estomac. One generally proceeded with delicacy, the body of the animal being held between the legs to prevent that it gigote. One added to corn, from time to time, of water to facilitate the Digestion of it.

After 1930, the gavoirs with crank and endless screws, more effective, faster, more practical eliminated the simple funnel definitively.

Nowadays, the gaveuses ones are provided with an electric mechanism, which makes the cramming much easier; indeed, the employees with the cramming were to have a dexterity to tame the animal, to persuade it, obtain a passive form of cooperation without which agitation and the stress would have led to wounds of the esophagus, a reduced output and an absence of satisfactory result.

Presentation

The foie gras are presented in several forms defined by the legislation:
  • whole Foie gras : one or two lobes of liver. It can be consumed cooked, semi-cooks or believed.
  • Foie gras : assembly of several pieces of liver.
  • Block of foie gras : block made up of 98% minimum of assembled pieces of foie gras.
  • Block of foie gras with pieces : it must contain 50% minimum of pieces of whole foie gras for goose, 30% minimum for duck.
  • Foam of foie gras : emulsion of foie gras and water or fresh cream, containing at least 50% of foie gras.
  • Pie of foie gras : containing at least 50% of foie gras.
  • Perfect of foie gras : containing at least 75% of foie gras.

In France, one consumes it traditionally cold in entry, at the time of meal of festival (midnight supper of the new year, for example). The Anglo-Saxons prefer it hot and one recently saw an increase in hot consumption in France, which had with the return of certain American receipts. In the world one also serves it in the form of Sushi S or on steak tartares.

Controversies

A coalition of association S of animal defense, joined together since the end of 2003 around “Proclamation for the abolition of the Cramming”, affirms the illegality of the cramming with respect to the existing French laws of animal protection as well as European texts.

The European directive of July 20th 1998 (complete text) stipulates indeed that “no animal is fed or watered so that it results from it from the sufferings or of the useless damage”; whereas the report/ratio of the Scientific committee of the European commission of the health and the wellbeing of the animals (December 16th, 1998; complete English text), noting that death rate in the course of Gavage is multiplied by ten or twenty, that the “level of steatosis must be considered pathological” and that the “significant amount of food intubés at high speed during the process of cramming immediately causes a distension of the esophagus, an increase in the thermal production and halètement, and semi-fluid feces excretion”, concludes that “the cramming, as it is practiced today, is prejudicial with the wellbeing of the birds”.

The cramming is in illegal fact in many countries, either under the terms of the general laws of animal protection, or because of specific prohibitions. It is prohibited in particular in Germany, in Argentine, Austria (explicitly in six provinces out of nine), with the Denmark, in Finland, Ireland, Israel (with effect at the beginning of 2005), in Italy (since the beginning of 2004), with the Luxembourg, in Norway, with the Netherlands, in Poland (fifth world producer before prohibition in 1999), in Czech Republic, with the the United Kingdom, in Sweden and Suisse. The Parliament of California voted in 2004 a law of prohibition of production and marketing of the foie gras with effect in 2012. A legislation of the same type is being studied in the State of New York. Since the August 22nd 2006, the sale of the foie gras is illegal with Chicago, but this law could be repealed soon. All these prohibitions were justified by their partisans on the animal Bien-être.

Associations recall that the foie gras are the sick body of a goose or a duck and denounce the strategy of the die: to surround the foie gras of one will have of luxury and magic, méticuleusement to avoid any reference to the cramming and the sufferings which are dependant there.

In France, the producers and industrialists of the foie gras joined together in CIFOG, supported by a certain number of studies (of the INRA in particular) affirm that the cramming is not a so cruel procedure. They propose that these birds are very young (a few months), especially high to be gavés (what does not change anything with the suffering birds). Moreover, the CIFOG argues that they would not express any symptom of pain during the cramming (which lasts " seulement" two to three weeks).

INRA was criticized to have made it possible its researchers to receive subsidies of the CIFOG to undertake research openly aiming at contradicting the conclusions of the Report of the Scientific committee of the European commission. Robert Dantzer, a reprocessed researcher of the INRA, qualified these same searchs of pseudo-science and searchs for opportunity.

In addition, the CIFOG makes pressure so that the cramming is protected under a “cultural exception”, which, as for the Tauromachie in the departments of the south, would allow its continuation.

The Law n° 2006-11 of January 5th, 2006 of agricultural orientation added the L654-27-1 article to the French rural code under the terms of whose “the foie gras belong to the cultural heritage and gastronomical protected in France. ”

Receipts

Whole foie gras

The foie gras prepare according to traditional receipts in Périgord and Alsace. With the difference of foie gras semi-cooks, which must be consumed quickly, the cooked foie gras is put out of bottle or preserve metal and sterilized during approximately 3 hours. It discharges more grease (delicious out of slices of bread) during cooking. It is preferable to wait at least a year to eat it, 3 years being the ideal to confer on the product a certain savor. It should be preserved safe from the light.

Contrary, fresh foie gras will be of as much better (and little degreased) that it will have been prepared at a temperature less and worked in the twenty-four hours which follow its taking away because it is a product of which gustatory qualities (texture and savor) hold for much with freshness and who deteriorate quickly because of toxins present.

Foie gras semi-cook

The foie gras semi-cook has gustatory qualities higher than the cooked foie gras, n the other hand, it is preserved less longer. The preserve foie gras are almost always cooked foie gras. To let discharge foie gras of Goose or Duck during one night with the expenses into water or Milk. To drain, wipe it, let it return to room temperature and the dénerver. To be quiet, to withdraw the part a little greener which was against the Fiel (gall bladder).

To salt and Pepper R without excess, to powder if required with a little Fennel-flower (attention, salting is a very important stage for the final quality of the foie gras). To sprinkle, according to the tastes, of Oporto, white Pinot, cognac, or sauternes. To distribute the liquid well. To let macerate a few hours with the expenses.

To preheat the furnace with 130°C (Th 4/5). To drain the surplus liquid. To lay out the liver in a pot. To be able to unmould it easily, have paper cooking initially. To cover the pot. To place at the furnace, in a Bain-marie of water with 70°C. Ideally, water should arrive at the level of the liver. To let cook during at least 45 minutes (to leave longer if the pot is thick, if the liver is large) and let cool in the furnace. Then to withdraw the lid and to pack the foie gras using a board with the form of the pot and a weight, during 4 hours. Then to withdraw the weight and the board to give the lid of the pot.

To keep with the expenses at least four days before being useful. To propose with fresh rod, sandwich bread roasted, Leavened bread roasted, as well as a mill of good pepper, salt flower of Guérande and Pepper of Sichuan.

Drink: there still, the opinions vary. Some find the Sauternes, the Jurançon or the too sweetened Monbazillac, but they remain a sure value. Test as a Gewurztraminer late grape harvest, a yellow wine of the the Jura or “grains noble”, a Tokay Hungarian, to see a Coteaux of the Tailboard because less sweetened and more acid as the preceding wines, or simply a champagne. For more originality, try a old pineau white.

See too

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  • regional Specialities
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  • Agro-alimentary Group Labeyrie

Traditional receipts and gastronomical culture

  • Pot of foie gras
  • Ravioles of foie gras
  • Foie gras stove with the caramel
(Receipts texts and audio and councils of fire Jean-Paul Malaurie, big boss and gastronomical chronicler Radio France Périgord)

External bonds

  • Official site of the professionals of the foie gras
  • Defense from the point of view according to which the cramming is not cruel for the animals.
  • Initiative citizen for the abolition of the cramming
  • Site of information of the countryside against the foie gras

References

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