T A B L E_T A L K

Places you hate: Remember them in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y

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__ FOIE GRAS DREAMS .|. PAGE 2 OF 2

Madame E. took only tea. Finished with her morning chores, she sat with us and talked foie gras. We learned she fed 60 ducks at a time during a two-week fattening process. The feed, 100 kilos (220 pounds) of corn and one cup of salt, was pressure-cooked, by her -- maison-fait again! -- every morning. Methodically, the daily feedings were increased: 10 ounces, morning and evening, on Day 1; three and a third pounds, morning and evening, by Day 14.

What appetites these birds had! Curiosity overpowering us, we finally asked to watch how this sublime delicacy was achieved. Madame, to our surprise, looked reluctant, but Monsieur beamed once more and complemented me on my use of precisely the right word. He said it was the delicacy of her touch in feeding the ducks that made them eat much more than others -- himself included -- could persuade them to. (I surveyed our breakfast plates and worried for our own livers; were we incubating two more sitting ducks for Madame E.'s rich foods and delicate insistence?) Arrangements were made to observe that evening's feeding.

We arrive in the duck barn promptly at 7 p.m. There is a waist-high open platform divided into two back-to-back rows of 30 individual wire cages from which 60 duck heads protrude. On the floor, under each animal, is a mountain of putty-like guano almost reaching the cage wires. The smell is revolting. Madame E., garbed in a large plastic apron, has just begun but is already splattered -- face, arms, apron -- with streaks of this putty. An overhead track runs the length of the platform; attached to it, dangling from a bungee-like cord, is a feeding funnel with an 18-inch shaft. Madame E. grabs a head and deftly inserts the tube into the open beak in one double-quick move. The end of the spout is somewhere deep inside the bird. She plops a huge amount of feed -- it is almost Day 14 -- into the cone, then hits a switch. The funnel vibrates noisily as the food is mechanically pushed through it, into the gut of the duck. The tube is removed; the animal is dazed, immobilized, barely alive. I think, "What nasty business I'm watching." My face must reflect this. Madame looks up and quietly echoes my thought. "C'est méchant, non?" Then she moves delicately down the line.

A duck is 4 months old at the end of this frenzy. Madame E. inserts a kitchen knife into the beak and slits the roof of the mouth. She removes the liver, keeps it and the bird on ice, hoses and disinfects the barn and personally delivers her product. The grossly enlarged, creamy-yellow liver weighs between one and two pounds and will grace some of the region's finest menus.

Foie gras is the supreme fruit of gastronomy and Madame E. produces the choicest fruit on the vine. She keeps only 10 livers, but as many as 60 ducks a year for family eating. The livers are too dear to withhold more; their tasty incubators are more affordable. The following day she ushers 60 new birds into her barn.

In the fantasies of a foolish, squeamish American, foie gras making was a Walt Disney production with folksy overtones. The reality is harsh. But delicate Madame E. understands her business very well; a farmer's life just doesn't happen to be a dream.

She moves down the line. We leave the barn to prepare for dinner.
SALON | March 25, 1998

Melinda Bergman Burgener is a writer who lives in San Francisco.