Foi Gras is the Black pearls of perception

I want to talk about a farm just outside of  Pallares, Spain. specifically the farmer

EDUARDO SOUSA

  

Foie gras is a luxury food product made of the liver of a duck or goose that has been specially fattened. By French law, foie gras is defined as the liver of a duck or goose fattened by force-feeding corn with a feeding tube, a process also known as gavage. Ducks are force-fed twice a day for 12.5 days and geese three times a day for around 17 days. Ducks are typically slaughtered at 100 days and geese at 112 days.

Now I understand a lot of people are against Foi Gras because almost all of it is made by force feeding.  This process I will not lie it is not a pretty process which is used by almost everyone, everyone but Eduardo Sousa.




A little history on the process of Foi Gras, as you read earlier by french definition it has to be force fed to meet the requirements.  However, if you do some digging back in time Egypt was the birthplace and actually it was invented by the Jews.  The original harvesting was done in the fall because naturally as the temperature decreases the goose fatten up for the weather, choosing to eat ravenously.  No joke here is a link to one source http://www.artisanfarmers.org/historyoffoiegras.html 

The story goes that the Pharaoh caught wind of the product and threatened the Jews to come up with a way to have it all year round.  So out of fear they created the process of gavage.  France eventually adopted it and continues to do the process. So in fact France definition by history is actually wrong!





The international gastronomic community has praised the peerless quality of the foie gras Sousa & Labourdette in 2006 during the SIAL, International Agro-alimentary Paris’ fair, winning the prestigious Coup de Cœur award. Which let me tell you France was pissed, the best being something that they by their standard shouldn't be good.  They spent a good chunk of time trying to discredit Sousa until eventually giving up.  I know I'm not going to change the mind of Peta and vegetarians about this mans family going back to the right way of doing foie gras.  But I would like for people to not take for granted the ability to question why something is the norm.  Black pearls used to have no market back in the day till we associated them with other luxury gems now they are worth a lot just because we created an anchor point on the price.