Over at the other place, I wrote about some of the things that just wouldn’t fit here. Mostly, that was about the anatomy and physiology of the digestive system of ducks and geese, and the question of how essential is the process of gavage to the production of foie gras. In French law, it is required. No gavage, no foie gras.
So what do you call the fatty liver that some people seem able to persuade ducks and geese to make?
Also, some links to things other people have written, and truly the most horrifying discovery of the past couple of weeks: foie’camole.
Any way you slice it, foie gras — the fatty liver of a duck or goose — is a fighting matter. To animal rights activists it is quite obviously cruel and depraved. To many chefs and eaters, it is a delicious extravagance. To many other chefs and eaters, it is something they would rather not countenance. To the vast majority of French people, it is a symbol of their nation and an essential part of their identity, the rare product of smiling rustic grandmothers, making a bit of pin money on the side. And for the industrial producers responsible for 90% of French foie gras, those rustic grandmothers are icons of perfect marketing.
Traditionally, the wine to drink with a bit of cheese was always a red wine. But tastes have changed, and nowadays you can find lots of recommendations for white wines to drink with cheeses. Those recommendations — all of them — are based on personal opinion, what one person likes or finds enjoyable. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course. Most recommendations are just that. But I was somewhat surprised to learn that although there have been lots of studies of how expert tasters describe not oney wine or cheese but just about anything, until now there has been almost no research into how the taste of one thing affects another.