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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2009 12:24:25 GMT
From NY Times Book Review,4/19/09,reviewed by Blake Wilson
The Foie Gras Wars,How the 5,000 Year Old Delicacy Inspired the World's Fiercest Food Fight,by Mark Caro
"Why read a 350 page book about the foie gras without a single recipe? Caro,a reporter for the Chicago Tribune and an engaging, funny writer, makes a palatable case for this luxury as an entry point into today's strangely high stakes food culture. Foie Gras farmers force feed geese or ducks, causing their livers to balloon with fat. Top chefs and their well heeled customers think nothing beats a seared slice of the stuff, while animal rights activists think the bloated livers are the product of brutal torture. Caro is a vegetarian leaning foodie(he eats poultry and fish) and he came down in the middle when he wrote a 2005 article about a Chicago chef's decision not to serve foie gras. The piece sparked a media frenzy,spurred an alderman to push through a short lived foie gras ban in the city and turned Caro into an obsessive. The case against force feeding is tough to refute, but as his globe trotting reporting shows, the birds probably have a happier, healthier life than most "factory farmed" chickens do. The book is part business story, part objective history and part profile of activists,chefs,farmers and politicians. If you set aside some gratuitous passages, fatty duck liver turns out to make a surprisingly interesting story. But by the final chapters you feel a little like Caro at the end of one of his multicourse foie gras debauches: a bit overstuffed yourself".
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2009 15:13:02 GMT
If you mention foie gras on just about any web forum, you are guaranteed to start an argument a debate.
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Post by auntieannie on May 3, 2009 15:19:48 GMT
The issue is when it (anything, actually) becomes an industry. I like foie gras... which reminds me I have some foie gras paté in the fridge, that needs eating!  |
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2009 15:20:26 GMT
I did not know that and was merely trying to share something of interest to me that I had just read.
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Post by auntieannie on May 3, 2009 15:27:57 GMT
casimira, maybe this forum is peopled with more "enlightened" foodies than on other parts of the web...
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Post by BigIain on May 3, 2009 16:27:14 GMT
I adore it but very rarely have foie gras. I particularly enjoy pate Richelieu which is a country pate, en croute, with a piece of foie gras pate in the middle of it.
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2009 16:44:38 GMT
I'm sure we are auntie. I'm feeling a little bristley this a.m.,maybe some new ailment yet to be discovered by modern medicine.
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2009 16:46:53 GMT
I still have a little can of foie gras that I must root around for.
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Post by bazfaz on May 3, 2009 20:48:15 GMT
I make my own each autumn. There is some in the freezer - it freezes excellently.
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Post by Deleted on May 4, 2009 7:43:45 GMT
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Post by lagatta on May 6, 2009 0:06:46 GMT
Yes, I've read this before. Pastrami (now made of beef) was originally made of goose, evidently it was a Turkish delight. and an equivalent to ham among Muslims and Jews.
A lot of (US) Americans make a foodie pilgrimage up here to Montréal, including fatty things from poutine to foie gras, and a local resto, Au pied de cochon, specialises in a high-end foie-gras poutine.
Actually I find agribusiness, such as megapigfarms, far crueller than le gavage. Have never cooked foies gras though. I like regular goose livers just fine - kerouac, you might find them at your local Chinese or other East Asian shops.
Another favourite dish thought to have Jewish roots is cassoulet, as it resembles the slow-cooking, bean-heavy dishes called d'fina or tefina (transliteration variations) among the Sephardim and cholent among the Ashkenazi. A sustaining dish baked in a slow oven and still warm on the Sabbath, when cooking, like all "work" except study, was forbidden. It would also have included goose or duck and its fat, obviously not pork or pork sausage.
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Post by bixaorellana on May 6, 2009 3:53:46 GMT
I love these historical details you have about food, LaGatta!
Um, any time you want to expound on Jewish Sicilian food, or any Sicilian food for that matter, you'll have an eager audience in me.
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Post by hwinpp on May 6, 2009 7:21:44 GMT
I like it and eat it on occasion. En bloc if possible.
Of course, geese have feelings too...
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2009 21:17:13 GMT
I came across this unusual item... and it looked good.  Strasbourg PieDuck foie gras, wrapped in bacon and baked in a puff pastry loaf. |
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Post by Deleted on May 7, 2009 21:49:34 GMT
Yipes,for a second I thought I was in the food abomination thread. That looks really,really good.
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Post by lagatta on May 7, 2009 22:57:49 GMT
It looks delicious - yes, very rich, but at that price nobody but billionnaires could eat of it in a "food abomination" manner. I love the wee pickles.
Foie gras poutine verges on high-end food abomination though. Stefano Faita (of the famous Quincaillerie Dante in my neighbourhood, also known familiary as "kill it and cook it" as there is little actual hardware there any more - nowadays it is part gun and tackle shop, part cookware shop - said it was actually very good but Stefano is a slender lad at least 20 or 25 years younger than I am and can indulge in such excess. Now he and his wife have a baby so I think he'll have to tone down his wild chef image a bit.
Martin Picard of La queue de cochon looks a bit as one might imagine a tough Québécois - part French peasant, part Amerindian hunter and trapper...
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2009 5:26:02 GMT
Yipes,for a second I thought I was in the food abomination thread. That looks really,really good. I found that photo mixed in on the site with the abominations that I have been posting. I couldn't believe that it was there. |
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Post by bixaorellana on May 8, 2009 5:58:45 GMT
I'm the dissenting vote, then. It looks awful. The bacon seems not to have cooked at all and what is that yellow over it? That looks like cheap commercial mustard right out of the jar. But the pastry is the worst. It's browned on the outside and undercooked and not flaky -- downright gummy, even -- on the inside. And I suspect the red part at the bottom of the collapsed loaf is blood from the inadequately cooked liver.
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Post by hwinpp on May 8, 2009 6:20:30 GMT
Maybe it's the way it looks before being pushed into the oven?
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Post by Jazz on May 8, 2009 11:54:35 GMT
While I think it looks delicious, I think something has gone wrong with the cooking and sequence of preparation...the crust is beautifully browned and flakey, but the next layer seems not to be cooked.
I love foie gras. One perfect meal for me is foie gras and little toasts, a simple green salad and a white wine. One of my finest lunches ever was this lunch at Clovis, near the market street, rue Montorgueil in Paris.
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2009 12:09:12 GMT
I would like to taste before I trash. The pastry does appear to be undercooked a bit. I would be inclined to maybe just eat the middle,leave the rest on the plate.(My mother would call me "an ingrate" when I did this as a child).
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2009 13:04:24 GMT
The yellow is thick delicious congealed goose fat.
And a French "pâté en croûte" is not supposed to be crispy.
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Post by lagatta on May 8, 2009 13:36:06 GMT
That is true. Jazz, have you ever had "regular" goose livers? They are quite tasty too, and much cheaper. You might find them at a shop in one of your many Chinatowns. Your meal sounds lovely. That is rue Montorgueuil. |
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Post by Jazz on May 8, 2009 19:47:07 GMT
Lagatta, no, I haven't had 'regular' goose livers but I will try them! I am planning to go to the Chinatown in the Dundas-Spadina area very soon...I thought I'd begin to take photos of some of our 'villages'.
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