Word: foie
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...Stone Barns Center, a farm and education center dedicated to sustainable agriculture in Pocantico Hills, some 30 miles (48 km) north of New York City, and Sousa is impressed with what he sees. "If I lived here," he says, reaching affectionately toward the geese, "I could make some amazing foie...
...Foie is short for foie gras, the engorged goose liver the French pioneered by force-fattening the birds with grain. But Sousa is a revolutionary of sorts: he is producing ethical foie gras. For him, there is no contradiction - in fact, there's a logical relationship - between treating animals well and producing superior food. In Spain's western region of Extremadura, he raises geese for foie gras without the forced feeding, known as gavage, that many animal-rights supporters equate with torture and that has gotten the silky delicacy outlawed in some cities. Now, at the invitation of Stone Barns...
...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 the French off." (Read "Fight for Your Right...
...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...
Sousa's visit did not begin 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...