Everything about Foie Gras totally explained
Foie gras (in English;
French for "fat liver") is "the
liver of a
duck or a
goose that has been specially fattened by
gavage" (as defined by French law).
Foie gras is one of the most popular and well-known
delicacies in
French cuisine and its flavour is described as rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike that of a regular duck or goose liver. Foie gras can be sold whole, or prepared into mousse, parfait, or
pâté (the lowest quality), and is typically served as an accompaniment to another food item, such as toast or steak.
The technique of gavage dates as far back as
2500 BCE, when the
ancient Egyptians began keeping birds for food and deliberately fattened the birds through force-feeding. Today,
France is by far the largest producer and consumer of foie gras, though it's produced and consumed worldwide, particularly in other European nations, the
United States, and
China.
Gavage-based foie gras production is
controversial, due to the force feeding procedure, and the possible health consequences of an enlarged liver, and a number of countries and other jurisdictions have laws against force feeding or the sale of foie gras due to how it's traditionally produced.
In modern gavage-based foie gras production, force feeding takes place 12−18 days before slaughter. The duck or goose is typically fed a controlled amount of corn mash through a tube inserted in the animal's
cuticle-lined
esophagus.
Fattened liver can be produced by
alternative methods without gavage, and this is referred to either as "fatty goose liver" or as foie gras (outside France), though it doesn't conform to the French legal definition, and there's debate about the quality of the liver produced. This method involves timing the slaughter to coincide with the winter migration, when livers are naturally fattened. This has only recently been produced commercially, and is a very small fraction of the market.
Foie gras production has been banned in nations such as some members of the
European Union, Turkey, and Israel because of the force-feeding process. Foie gras producers maintain that force feeding ducks and geese isn't uncomfortable for the animals nor is it hazardous to their health.
History
Ancient times
In the
necropolis of
Saqqara, in the tomb of Mereruka, an important royal official, there's a
bas relief scene wherein workers grasp geese around the necks in order to push food down their throats. At the side stand tables piled with more food pellets, probably roasted grain, and a flask for moistening the feed before giving it to the geese.
The practice of geese-fattening spread from Egypt to the Mediterranean. The earliest reference to fattened geese is from the
5th century BCE Greek poet
Cratinus, who wrote of geese-fatteners, yet Egypt maintained its reputation as the source for fattened geese. When the
Spartan king
Agesilaus visited Egypt in
361 BCE, he was greeted with fattened geese and calves, the riches of Egyptian farmers.
It wasn't until the Roman period, however, that foie gras is mentioned as a distinct food, which the Romans named
iecur ficatum;
iecur means
liver and
ficatum derives from
ficus, meaning fig in
Latin. The emperor
Elagabalus fed his dogs on foie gras during the four years of his chaotic reign.
Pliny the Elder (1st century CE) credits his contemporary, Roman gastronome
Marcus Gavius Apicius, with feeding dried figs to geese in order to enlarge their livers:
Hence, the term
iecur ficatum, fig-stuffed liver; feeding figs to enlarge a goose's liver may derive from Hellenistic Alexandria, since much of
Roman luxury cuisine is of Greek inspiration.
Ficatum was closely associated with animal liver and it became the
root word for "liver" in each of these languages:
foie in
French,
hígado in
Spanish,
fígado in
Portuguese,
fegato in
Italian and
ficat in
Romanian, all meaning "liver"; this etymology has been explained in different manners.
Postclassical Europe
After the fall of the Roman empire, goose liver temporarily vanished from European cuisine. Some claim that Gallic farmers preserved the foie gras tradition until the rest of Europe rediscovered it centuries later, but the medieval French peasant's food animals were mainly pig and sheep. Others claim that the tradition was preserved by the
Jews, who learned the method of enlarging a goose's liver during the Roman colonisation of
Israel or earlier from Egyptians. The Jews carried this culinary knowledge as they migrated farther north and west to Europe.
The Judaic dietary law,
Kashrut, forbade
lard as a cooking medium, and
butter, too, was proscribed as an alternative since Kashrut also prohibited mixing meat and dairy products. Jewish cuisine used
olive oil in the
Mediterranean, and
sesame oil in
Babylonia, but neither cooking medium was easily available in Western and Central Europe, so poultry fat (known in Yiddish as
schmaltz), which could be abundantly produced by overfeeding geese, was substituted in their stead. The delicate taste of the goose's liver was soon appreciated;
Hans Wilhelm Kirchhof of
Kassel wrote in
1562 that the Jews raise fat geese and particularly love their livers. Some
Rabbis were concerned with the
kashrut dietary complications consequent to overfeeding geese, because Jewish law prohibits eating a
treyf animal. The chasam sofer, Rabbi
Moses Sofer, contended that it isn't a
treyf animal as none of its limbs is damaged. This matter remained a debated topic in Jewish dietary law until the Jewish taste for goose liver declined in the 19th century. Another kashrut matter, still a problem today, is that even properly slaughtered and inspected meat must be drained of blood before being considered fit to eat. Usually, salting achieves that; however, as liver is regarded as "(almost) wholly blood", broiling is the only way of kashering. Properly broiling a foie gras while preserving its delicate taste is an arduous endeavour few engage in seriously. Even so, there are grilled meat restaurants in Israel, such as Tel Aviv's Yehuda Avazi's, that offer grilled goose foie gras.
Gentile gastronomes began appreciating fattened goose liver, which they could buy in the local Jewish
ghetto of their cities. In 1570,
Bartolomeo Scappi, chef de cuisine to
Pope Pius V, published his cookbook
Opera, wherein he describes that "the liver of [a] domestic goose raised by the Jews is of extreme size and weighs [between] two and three pounds." In
1581, Marx Rumpolt of
Mainz, chef to several German nobles, published the massive cookbook
Kochbuch, describing that the Jews of
Bohemia produced livers weighing more than three pounds; he lists recipes for it—including one for goose liver
mousse. János Keszei, chef to the court of Michael Apafi, the prince of
Transylvania, included foie gras recipes in his
1680 cookbook
A New Book About Cooking, instructing cooks to "envelop the goose liver in a calf's thin skin, bake it and prepare [a] green or [a] brown sauce to accompany it. I used goose liver fattened by Bohemian Jews, its weight was more than three pounds. You may also prepare a mush of it."
Main producers
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