Word: farm
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...Extremadura, the 1,000 or so geese Sousa raises each year roam freely, eating their fill of acorns and olives, on a farm that replicates the wild as closely as possible. "If you convince them that they're not domesticated, their natural instinct takes over," he explains. "When it turns cold and it's time for them to migrate, they start gorging to prepare for the long flight." The result is a fattened liver that, while smaller than conventional foie, is delicious enough to have won France's prestigious Coup de Coeur award. "That," Sousa likes to say, "really pissed...
...could that foie be reproduced elsewhere? Inspired by what he saw and tasted during his January 2008 visit to Sousa's farm, chef Dan Barber, whose second Blue Hill restaurant is located on the grounds of Stone Barns and who serves as the center's creative director, was determined to find out. He persuaded the center's farmers to dedicate part of their pasture to geese and to feed them the highest quality organic corn. There was only one problem: in his enthusiasm, Barber had somehow missed the importance of letting the birds forage for their own food. Accustomed...
...auspiciously. For one, he was nearly arrested at Portuguese customs when he tried to change flights in Lisbon with two fresh goose livers packed in his carry-on (the foie gras, much to Barber's chagrin, was confiscated). And his first stop, a tour of a duck-foie gras farm in upstate New York that uses gavage, left Sousa with literal nightmares. That night, he dreamed of hordes of ducks with very long bills...
...Stone Barns, with its pastured livestock and lush vegetable gardens, inspires the Spaniard. Touring the grounds with Barber and Craig Haney, the center's livestock manager, he repeats his verdict on the farm's foie-producing potential. It's exactly what the chef wants to hear, but Haney isn't so easily convinced. Stone Barns may look like someone's idyllic paean to sustainable agriculture, but it's also a working farm, and that means limited resources. After last year's debacle, Haney is letting the geese forage on grass but worries about the lack of acorns. "It doesn...
Although Haney is intrigued by the idea of raising animals in conditions that replicate the wild, he's not sure he can make the economics work. Natural nesting means that the birds lay only one set of eggs per year, and for a diversified farm where each animal has to earn its keep, that's nowhere near enough eggs. Also, he prefers to be scientific in his experimentation, altering only one variable at a time. "Farms change in years," he says. "Not months." For now, Stone Barns' geese will be hatched in incubators...