Chef Dan Barber Brings Sustainable, Humane Foie Gras to America
Every time I post about foie gras, I get hate mail. Get ready to comment, because here we go again.
Foie gras is one of the most delicious foods on the planet. Not only that, it’s one of the most nutrient-dense foods, full of fat soluble activators including vitamins A, D, E, and K that protect us from all manner of degenerative disease. It’s also a very traditional food that has been around for thousands of years (can you say Egyptians?).
For these reasons, I will not stop loving foie gras and I will not stop eating it, with no apologies, no matter what anyone says. Even California Governor Arnold Schwartzenneger, who signed a bill in 2004 requiring that Sonoma Foie Gras “shut down the operation or convert it to another use by 2012 due to demonstrable animal cruelty by force-feeding.” (Source)
I agree with Chef Anthony Bourdain who holds that position that while contemporary foie gras production is not ideal, it truly is no harm, no foul. (Get it? Foul? I made a pun. Sorry, I’ll stop that. I really hate puns.)
If you haven’t seen it yet, watch this video of Bourdain showing the truth about foie gras production. It doesn’t look comfortable — but it doesn’t look painful either.
In fact, when my mother went to France a couple of years ago, she visited a foie gras farm. When she asked if the geese suffered during the gavage or “force-feeding” of grain, the French farmer laughed and said, “Are you kidding? They line up for it!”
But I’m not writing this post to convince you that force-feeding ducks and geese is an practice that should be upheld. Because it turns out there is a better way. Did you know there is such a thing as sustainable, humane foie gras?
There’s a farmer named Eduardo Sousa who raises geese on an idyllic farm in Spain. “He provides them with a plentiful spread of regional foods, including figs, nuts and herbs, knowing that the geese will instinctively gorge on food in preparation for the coming winter and long migration south.”
Yes, you heard that right. They gorge themselves. Instinctively. It’s what they do. Which is how foie gras was discovered in the first place, thousands of years ago.
By early December the geese at Pateria de Sousa can be seen waddling around the grounds, their swollen bellies nearly dragging on the ground as a result of their gluttony. Sousa harnesses nature whenever possible in order to create a more delicious and ethical product, eliminating the need for force-feeding.
Now Chef Dan Barber, owner of Blue Hill Restaurant in New York, is working to recreate Sousa’s sustainable model for producing truly free-range foie gras from non-force-fed geese here in the United States.
Watch him tell the story in the video below. Watch the whole thing because it will blow you away:
I am so excited about this, I can hardly stand it. Kudos to Eduardo Sousa and Chef Barber for resurrecting this sustainable model for one of the most nutrient-dense and delicious foods on the planet.
Here’s some really exciting news: Chef Dan Barber is speaking this year at the Weston A. Price Foundation annual conference this November 13-16 in Schaumburg, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.
This is truly the most exciting time of the year for me. I learn so much at every WAPF conference. I will be there in November, along with fellow Real Food Media bloggers, Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Kimi of The Nourishing Gourmet, and Jenny of Nourished Kitchen (recently nominated as Best Sustainable/Green Food blog on FoodBuzz), and WAPF publicist, Kimberly from Hartke is Online.
We would love to see you there. (Come eat dinner with us! If you’re going, comment below and we’ll make arrangements for a dinner.) For details on the conference, click here.
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20/10/2009 at 2:59 pm Permalink
What a great post! One of the greatest things I love about Spain is their commitment to raising and growing sustainably and organically. Their local foods movement is out of this world! Ecologico
(Can you tell I’m a Spaniard 
20/10/2009 at 3:22 pm Permalink
It sounds delicious! I am looking forward to my first WAPF conference this fall and hope to see all my favorite bloggers there!
20/10/2009 at 3:57 pm Permalink
Bonnie –
I’ll email you offline about the conference. Looking forward to meeting you!
20/10/2009 at 4:01 pm Permalink
Diana – I am crazy about the food in Spain. I went to Barcelona a few years ago and fell in love with the Boqueria, the giant farmer’s market they have there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Boqueria
I would go in the morning, order a cup of coffee, and just sit and take it all in, enthralled by the food, the people, the hustle and bustle. The displays of fresh fish they have there are unbelievable.
I preferred going to the Boqueria over any other sight-seeing. The last night we were there, we went and bought a ton of food and cooked a feast of tapas for New Year’s Eve. It was fantastic.
20/10/2009 at 4:22 pm Permalink
On an only slightly related note, my father had a cow that got into some grain and ate itself to death a few years back. I can see your point.
20/10/2009 at 4:50 pm Permalink
This is so wonderful to see sustainable, free range foie grois. I’ve not yet had it, but can’t wait until I do!
Hope you guys have a great time at the conference! I so wish I was going this year, but I have a little one to attend to this year. Maybe next year! Can’t wait to hear and see (with all your pictures) all about it Ann Marie!
20/10/2009 at 5:07 pm Permalink
That is wonderful news! I have to admit that I have never eaten foie gras, and don’t much care for the idea of having it conventionally, but this I would eat.
Hel, I am having veal again for the first time since I was ten. A local farmer is keeping the calves with their mother, they’re out in the fields, living their lives.
and I am sure I am going to get flambed for this comment.
20/10/2009 at 5:09 pm Permalink
Christine, I will very much miss seeing you. It was so much fun to meet with you and hang out with you last year. I look forward to seeing you next year!
20/10/2009 at 5:15 pm Permalink
What a great post! Those videos were fantastic. I admit that I have never actually had foie gras, but it’s definitely on my list of things to try!
And I soooo wish I could go to the conference! When I got the brochure in the mail and saw that it was in driving distance, I was just dying to go. The budget does not allow, but maybe someday…
20/10/2009 at 9:35 pm Permalink
Wow, I’ve never been into foie gras until you first introduced me to it in April, Ann Marie, and before that I’d never have thought that I could listen to someone talk about it for 20 minutes and find it so interesting, but I did!
21/10/2009 at 4:59 am Permalink
This is really neat – I was recently in Napa for a cooking competition and, while walking in the morning, stumbled upon a local farmer’s market. It was so neat to see the chefs from the local wineries in their whites, out shopping for the day’s food, talking to each other about what to make and with what. It brought tears to my eyes. I live in Dallas and you don’t see that often here. Ok, I’ve never seen it.
I know some restaurants have their ingredients shipped fresh daily and they work from that and others go to the markets when they can – I think the movement is slowly catching on here but it’s much slower than on the west coast and up north.
21/10/2009 at 6:22 am Permalink
Awesome.
I can always count on you to spread the good news about stuff like this. Always great when I can feel better about what I’m eating!
21/10/2009 at 8:14 am Permalink
Amy – I used to live in Dallas, too.
We also have moments like that here in LA. The Santa Monica Wednesday market is where all the chefs shop!
21/10/2009 at 11:29 am Permalink
Ann Marie, I really wish I could be there to see and talk to you again too!
I was looking around on your blog to see if you had a discount code for Vital Choice Seafood. I saw one for US Wellness meats, but not Vital Choice. We are placing an order with someone else, then driving across the border to pick it up (as they don’t deliver to Canada). Could you let me know about that?
Thanks!
21/10/2009 at 11:50 am Permalink
Christine,
We are ending all of our affiliate programs due to the recent FTC regulations that just passed. I need to go back and take down all those old links before the regulations go through Dec. 1.
I am going to speak to Vital Choice about advertising with us when I see them at the conference. As far as discount codes, I’m not sure. I am going to talk to both VC and USWM about doing coupons as part of my menu mailer. I will keep you posted.
21/10/2009 at 2:59 pm Permalink
Christine,
I used the code DRJONNY to get 10% off my first order. I believe it still works, but you can only use it once. I tried for my second order, and was denied.
I found the code through a google search “Vital Choice Coupon”. Good luck!
21/10/2009 at 3:25 pm Permalink
Thanks so much for sharing that video! It was awesome.
I’ve wanted to try foie gras since I heard about it years ago. This is only fueling that fire!
22/10/2009 at 2:52 pm Permalink
Hello AM,
I am trying to get my passport in order so I can attend the conference. I’d love to come out to dinner if you’ll have me.
22/10/2009 at 7:41 pm Permalink
It’s too bad that foie gras is seen as worse than other factory farmed food products. It unfairly targets foie gras and simultaneously lets other producers off the hook. This Spanish model makes sense and it sounds much healthier (figs and nuts? I’d probably gorge myself!), tastier and certainly more enjoyable for the goose while it is alive.
The CEO of the Humane Society recently blogged about the sci-fi type horrors happening to other animals for food: Genetic modification for rapid muscling that causes billions of animals to endure chronic pain from skeletal disorders that impair their ability to even walk. Turkeys are so top-heavy they are physically incapable of mating. Chickens suffer such explosive growth that they have to be starved lest they risk cardiac rupture. “Double-muscled” calves born into the beef industry grow so freakishly huge that they can only be extracted via Caesarian section. Some hens lay so many eggs that they risk a prolapse—laying her own uterus. And there are cows capable of generating ten times more milk than a calf could ever suckle.
The Humane Society of the United States does amazing work to raise awareness and put pressure on food producers to produce humanely in *this* country. I hope everyone supports them!
23/10/2009 at 6:10 am Permalink
Wow. Those were great videos. I’m one of those people who condemned foie gras while knowing absolutely nothing about it. Ignorance is bliss, but it’s also stupid. Thanks for enlightening me.
27/10/2009 at 7:24 am Permalink
Dan’s right to be doing this. We’re doing the same thing in Georgia using heritage geese (Pilgrim, Pomeranian, Toulouse and African), planting figs, persimmons and forages that allow them to do what they do naturally.
Tim
Nature’s Harmony Farm
01/11/2009 at 5:34 pm Permalink
Thanks for bringing up this important issue. I learned about this “free range” natural way of raising geese a couple of years ago and it’s great to hear that Dan Barber is working on offering this alternative.
I’m a big fan of the Real Food network and would love to have dinner with you all at the conference. Please be in touch.
Angela