'Kinder and gentler foie gras' versus 'real foie gras'

The thread "Liver" in alt.usage.english has reminded me of a subject I've been thinking of posting about since around Christmas.

In the December 23, 2004 Minneapolis Star Tribune appeared the article "Gasset's pampered ducks produce fabulous foie gras" by Rick Nelson. This discussed an artisanal pâté de foie gras produced in Caledonia, Minnesota. The beginning of the article was posted in an Internet discussion group at

http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable type/2005-3 archives/000059.html

No one uses the term "kinder and gentler foie gras" in the article, but that's what popped into my head when I read the original article. The more I read, however, the more I came to suspect that the method used by Christian Gasset to make his Au Bon Canard foie gras was nothing more than the traditional method used in France.A bit later, however, I talked with a friend of mine a Frenchwoman, now an American citizen who had read the same article and was quite adamant that the foie gras in question could not be "real foie gras." She had lived on a farm in France, and had personally seen what was done to produce foie gras the traditional way. From what I could tell, the main difference in production between traditional foie gras and Au Bon Carnard foie gras is the amount forced down the gullet of the goose.

The geese in either case eat more than they would if they followed their natural instincts. The treatment of the geese before force-feeding begins, which is similar to the life of free-range chickens, might make a difference too, at least between Au Bon Canard and the factory-farm produced foie gras. The difference in taste between Au Bon Canard and all other foie gras, both traditionally produced and factory-farm produced is, according to the people quoted in the article, that Au Bon Canard tastes better and lacks a certain "coppery" taste found in the other foie gras.
I see there is now a Web site for Au Bon Canard at

http://www.auboncanard.com/
It is new, however, and just has minimal information at this point.

One more point: The US Federal Government has a standard of identity for "foie gras." See the
PDF document at
http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/meatscience/FSIS%20labeling%20book/USDAPolicyBook.pdf

or the Google HTML version at

That document refers only to "specially fed and fattened geese and ducks," but I have to think that somewhere else there must be specifications, such as fat content, for the livers of the poultry in question. Some people might take such a standard of identity as their own definition of what constitutes "real foie gras."

Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com