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Short Stuff: Foie Gras · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck and Jerry's wandering around the halls somewhere stuff
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to the gill like a fattened goose with mis gross.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sorry, like she she eats balls of me
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: so doesn't even choose them, just swallows them like a duck,
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: and they get stored in her liver and eventually we
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: will kill Jerry and eat that liver and it's going
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to be delicious. I'm surprised that a Miso uh manufacturer
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and distributor hasn't I guess you don't manufacture it, but
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: packager has not tried to custom brand a Miso Jerry brand.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: M it's a it's a I think maybe we should
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: do that. Maybe not my best idea. It's not a
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: bad idea, though, you know what I'm saying, Like, it's
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: not one that just makes you go like, let's just
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: keep talking and pretend you didn't say that. I appreciate that.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Like there's a few bucks in it for us, I
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: think on the road, right, Okay, So we're talking about
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: fattened liver because if you um translate the word fatty
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: liver into the franche, it comes out to be fois gras.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: But you may have heard of before, you may have
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: even eaten before, you may detest. But it's like one
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: of the most um controversial foods ever. And I mean like, seriously,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: you could have never even seen this stuff and have
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: just heard those words, and you probably are aware that
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: it is an extremely controversial food. Yeah, and this is
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: something I've never tried in Ah, certainly because of the practice.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: But even before I knew how it happened, I just
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: don't eat organ meats, and fattened goose liver just would
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: not appeal to me anyway. I don't like Pett's and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, so it never would have been on
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: my culinary radar anyway. I have to admit that on
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: a visit to Italy, I ate any kind of organ
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: meat literally morning, noon and night for days on end,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: and it was just a dream. The thing is is,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of people out there say, hey, fat boy,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: why don't you quit eating that stuff, because there's a
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: lot of animals that suffered to make that and they
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: have a really good case, so much so that there
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: have been bands specifically on fla gras. In fact, in
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: New York in two thousand nineteen, they passed a band
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: bill that prohibits get this storing, maintaining, selling, or offering
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: to sell force fed products or food containing force fed products,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: which is basically targeting flall gra because fall grass a
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: force fed product, hence the controversy associated with it. That's right, India, Australia, California,
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: other places that have banned uh fla graw from being
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I guess at least sold and served in restaurants. And
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: the practice you're talking about, this force feeding is it?
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Is it called gavage? I believe so. Yeah, that's that's
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: how I would say g A V A g E.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: And this goes way way back to Um Jesus, at
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: least Egypt when they were forced feeding these geese when
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: they saw that quote developed, uh, the waterfowl developed large
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: fatty livers after eating large amounts in preparation for migration.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: And then this goes to the Mediterranean and then into France,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: where a lot of our culinary traditions were born. And
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: there was a chef there named Jean Joseph Klaus or
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Klaussa that'll probably German Klaus, and he is credited with
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: creating the first fua gra in seventeen seventy nine and
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: patenting it in Yeah, and he got twenty pistols from
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: King Louis the sixteenth saying thanks a lot, pal for
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: creating fois gras. I love it. I slather it on
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: my naked body every night. Go shoot some geese. So um. Yeah,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: they're like this. This is based on this idea that
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: that ducks and geese naturally fatten up storing fat on
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the liver they stored on their under their skin too,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: like we do. We also store fat on our liver,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: but geese and and ducks are just evolutionary aces that
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: storing fat in their liver. And it just so happens
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that somebody said, I wonder what that tastes like they
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: tried it, and we're like, this is astounding. And most
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: of the time when you have pette, it's um or
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: full graw. It isn't a patte form, which is to say,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: it looks a lot like cat food inconsistency, very similar color,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: maybe even a similar smell. It's the taste that really
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: differentiates it. Not just the taste but also the price.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: They can get up to like eighty bucks a pound,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: usually forty to eighty dollars a pound for full graw,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: which is a lot of money for a pound of
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: any kind of food. But one of the reasons why
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: is the production is so food is so labor intensive, right,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: and then also the stuff that goes in along with it,
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: like very fine brandies, truffles. Um, it's a it's about
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: as decade in a food as as you can find. Yeah,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: just really reeks of uh well, I guess it reeks
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: of of Henry the Eighth or King Louis, the people
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: like that who got gouted when they were in their
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: twenties and just surrounded themselves with fats and meats and
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: liver organ meats and things like that. I'm sure I'm
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: making you hungry. I'm about to vomit. But if you're
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the coin and you are
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: into animal rights and stuff like that, you might say, hey, um,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: ducks hyperventilate sometimes, sometimes they bleed, sometimes they are shackled
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: when you were forced feeding them. Uh. They rallied for
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: that bill, the seventy eight bill that you were talking about,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: And you can be fined anywhere from five hundred to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: two thousand dollars starting in New York City. Yeah, when
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it takes effect, I guess all of New York or
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: maybe just New York City. So you would think, like,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: you know, what's controversial about this, It's just rotten, it's wrong,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: it's mean, um all to produce like one of the
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: most decadent foods around. Like, there's really nothing ConTroll controversial
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: about that. It's it sounds pretty one sided, and a
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: lot of people feel that way. There is, however, another
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: side that argue against it, and we will visit them
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: right after this, all right. So there's a lot of
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: people out there, chuck that say, well, we hear what
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: you're saying, but you're all dumb and you're wrong, and
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: they actually say it like that. A lot um A
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: lot of like chefs, especially celebrity chefs, have actually taken
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a stand in favor of FOA Graw, saying that it's
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: unfairly targeted. Um. One of the reasons I saw. I
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: read a couple of posts on Serious Eats in defense
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of it, and they said, you know, this is a
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: um a type of food that's associated with the very rich. Uh.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: It's really easy to get people riled up because you
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: hear things like force feeding and jamming tubes down animals
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: necks and making their liver ten times their normal size.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: You put all that together, and you know, fo graw
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: becomes unfairly targeted and it's kind of hard to swallow
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: at first. I'm very sorry about that one. The idea
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: that anybody would defend force feeding an animal to fatten
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: its liver to ten times its size so that um
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: gout ridden old ritchies can eat a little bit of
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: this stuff. Um. But if something is unfairly demonized, it
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: is worth looking into an unpacking. And they do make
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: a couple of good points here there. Yeah. There's a
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: group called the Catskill fwag Rock Collective, worst band name ever,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: and they produced most of the flag raw that you
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: would get in New York City. You could still get
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I guess once restaurants are open for the next couple
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: of years. Yeah. And they they have challenged the band
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and they say it's unconstitutional. Um, you don't have jurisdiction
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: over what we do to blastio and these are our
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: businesses and you can't shut us down. Um. And the
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I guess the leader of the president, Marcus Henley of
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the Catskill Flag Rock Collective says, you know what, this
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: this little tube is really not causing any discomfort. Ducks.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Ducks aren't like us. They're built different this uh than
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: than us, and this tube is they they love this thing,
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: trust me basically. Um. In that serious Seats article, they
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: went to like the greatest flag graw farm on the
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: planet and the ducks like came over to get their
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: garvage um feeding. But the that's definitely not par for
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: the course. There's a lot of videos out there of
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: some really abusive duck and geese farms where they're stuck
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: in cages and their beaks are broken and they're bleeding
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: out of their noses and they're lost feathers and they
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: have like vomit around their mouth and they're still being
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: force fed. Um. There's some really awful operations out there.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: But um, the apparently, if you're getting good fall raw,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: you're getting it from somebody who's treating their animals very well.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: And the case they're making about ducks and geese being
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: built differently than us is that their esophagus, their esopha
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: guy I guess, are not connected to their trach yet
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: they're two separate ones rather than shared like in in humans,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: and their esophagus is allowed to stretch like they can
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: eat fish that are many times over the size of
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: their actual esopha guy, so they can stretch pretty easily.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: So that's where they say it doesn't really give them
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: much discomfort if any um and that their their liver
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: fattening to like huge like sy is that it's actually
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: kind of built to do that. This is just human
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: speeding up this process or kind of making it in
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: like a simulated way like the ducks. The ducks and
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: the geese aren't doing this to migrate, but they are
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: responding naturally to this kind of simulated packing on the weight,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and that if you kind of start to understand it,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: you will probably change your mind about fall graw. I
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: don't know if that's a foregone conclusion, but from what
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I read, it isn't as quite as as bad as
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I presumed. The one that got me, though, Chuck, is
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: that if you they say, if you are fine with
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: eating eggs, you don't really think about where your chicken
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: eggs are coming from, You've got no leg to stand
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: on going after fla graw because the chickens that are
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: producing those eggs that you're eating are being treated just
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: as bad, if not worse than the worst cases of
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the ducks and the geese that are being fattened up
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: for patte. That is the one point that I find
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: difficult to challenge. Well, yeah, I mean, you know, very
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: famously worked in the chicken farming industry, unfortunately as a
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: marketing person, and it's terrible. Um, but these days you
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: can get chickens from one of your neighbors, most likely,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: and that's what we do. It does smell like a
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: what about is? Um? You know, I think it smells
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: like it because it very much is exactly that. Yeah. Yeah,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: so I I moren flall gry. I don't think I
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: can really eat it anymore. I haven't eaten in a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: very long time. But um, I do have my memories
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: with it, the livers of dead abused ducks that I've eaten.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm sorry ducks. I'm sorry, quack. That's okay, quack.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I wonder if you know you said that they were
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: meant or not meant to, but their livers would fatten
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: up anyway for migration. I guess they are meant to.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: I wonder if these ducks run over there to get
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: this force feeding, because they're like this is gonna get
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: me out of here. Man, You're gonna fly, fly fly
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: pretty soon. I got to get out of here. This
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: is the worst. Oh goodness. Um and the unconstitutional thing,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what are they talking about? Suppose the state wise,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: it's unconstitutional because they're trying to regulate interstate commerce. But
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know that that necessarily holds up mm hmm. Interesting.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: So there you go, flag everybody. Uh, go make up
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: your own mind about it. Go do you a little
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: research and see what you think. And in the meantime,
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Short Stuff is app Stuff you Should Know is a
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
• 12:27
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• 12:30
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