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More on Foie Gras

May 20, 2012 by annasalts

I didn’t really want to get into a tit-for-tat debate about foie gras but someone called Sam has left a lengthy comment on my last blog post which I am responding to in the hope it clarifies my point of view.

This is what Sam has to say:

As a share holder of course you are going to side with the restaurant and the practice of force feeding geese , despite not having any real evidence to back up your assertions that this is humane and the geese are all good with it. I dont care how much you gloss it over it is still cruelty and by the way sow stalls will be illegal from 2015 in NZ .
You say these people are “bullying” the restaurant , they have a right to protest and id hardly call standing peacefully with a few placards handing out leaflets “bullying” more like exercising ones right to freedom of expression in NZ. This group have sent letters to two food places in Wellington regarding Foie gras and thats all that was needed for them to take it off the shelves . If they were to protest the french embassy that would have no effect at all and not be informing potential eaters of this product , by the way the French government has made it illegal to even have vegetarian options in their schools so they would be wasting their time trying to lobby the french government.

This is my response:

Dear Sam,

Firstly I don’t say that all foie gras farming is humane and I certainly don’t “gloss over” the appalling treatment of birds in some factory farms. I have in fact, directed people towards YouTube and clips that document what I call the shameful side of foie gras. However, I also know from my own experience (and that is evidence enough for me) that this is not the norm. All the foie-gras farms I’ve seen are tidy humane places where the birds free-range on pasture until the gavage period at which stage they’re penned in groups with lots of room to move. The force-feeding is quick and the birds are not at all upset by it. Ducks and geese are not humans, they are designed to take big lumps of food straight down their necks – have you ever watched a water bird swallow a whole fish? 

My point is that there are good and bad farmers. The anti-foie gras brigade choose to back up their view by focusing on the worst-case factory farms that treat their birds badly.  This is like condemning all beef farming because some operators confine cattle on feedlots, or saying people shouldn’t eat pork because some pig farmers keep pigs in horrible conditions. Why do you think foie gras is any different? Don’t you think that a better response is for restaurants and consumers to support good producers by buying animal products from farms with good welfare and environmental standards – whether it be pork, eggs, beef or foie-gras? This is the policy at Le Canard.  

However, the main point of my blog post was to object to the bullying behaviour of the people who have been protesting outside Le Canard restaurant every weekend for the last six months. You object to my use of the term ‘bullying’. What else do you call the behaviour of people who will not respect the opinions of others and who use intimidating tactics to make the object of their protest behave in the way they see fit? Six months of leafleting customers and waving placards outside the restaurant – not to mention the xenophobic phone calls, and demands that the chef alter his menu – certainly fits my definition of bullying. 

You seem to think that because the activists are not breaking the law by their protest action, it’s OK. Have you considered that there are also no laws against the cyber-bullying that has driven some young people to suicide? Bullying may be legal but it’s not morally acceptable. Clearly, the protestors’ unspoken threat is: take foie gras off the menu or we will do our best to destroy your business. I find it bizarre that you can support the protestors’ right to freedom of expression but not the chef’s right to choose what he puts on his menu.

Anna

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Foie Gras

May 14, 2012 by annasalts

I’m driven to write this post because the restaurant in which I have a share is being subjected to a bullying protest action by a group of animal welfare activists. Every weekend night for the past six months they have been outside Le Canard restaurant in Wellington accosting passers-by and restaurant diners with leaflets demanding they “Say No to Foie Gras”.

Le Canard (The Duck) specialises in the cuisine of South West France, specifically the Pèrigord region which is home to truffles, cèpes, duck and foie gras. Its customers dine at the restaurant because they like the style of food and the authentic ambiance it offers. No one has to order foie gras; those who do, know exactly what it is: the fattened liver of a force-fed (gavaged) duck or goose.

Foie Gras prepared mi-cuit for sale at a French market

It is not – as the protestors would have us believe – a liver that is diseased/infected with hepatic lipidosis. Can you imagine the health authorities of France or New Zealand allowing a diseased avian product to be sold or exported?  The gavage process is not done to make the animal as “sick as possible”, and “many birds” do not “asphyxiate to death” during the process. The highly emotive leaflet circulated by the protestors takes the very worst instances of factory-farmed cruelty and presents it as the status quo. Let me redress the balance.

I have worked as an agricultural journalist; I am now a food writer. I have lived in France, I’ve visited foie gras farms, I’ve seen the gavage in action, I’ve discussed the issue with practically every French person I’ve met and I’ve researched foie gras production for a feature I made for Radio New Zealand in 2006. This is what I’ve learned.

There are good and bad farmers. Just as New Zealand has farmers who mistreat their animals, so it is in France. Both countries have regulations to keep the worst operators in check; sometimes – as in the case of the Crafar farms – it can take some time for the authorities to act.

It is also true that both countries sanction questionable farming practices by law. These laws enable us to farm on an intensive scale and produce the food we like to eat. In New Zealand it is perfectly legal to keep sows in farrowing crates and layer hens in cages where they have little room to move. In France it’s legal to force-feed ducks and geese for the production of foie gras.

Both countries set minimum standards and both countries have farmers who choose to farm at a much higher standard. These people farm less intensively, often free ranging their livestock and opting to take less profit for a more natural or artisan operation. So it is with foie gras. Some foie gras is produced intensively; some of it is produced by artisans.

In Périgord the producers have formed a regionally defined association to distance themselves from the practices of some factory produced foie gras that has become big business in parts of France but especially in Eastern European countries that have lower standards.

The duck and geese farms in Périgord tend to be small scale. The birds are hatched and raised free-range on pasture until the last 2 or 3 weeks of their lives when they go into a barn that’s separated into pens. They are gavaged 2 or 3 times a day in a process that takes less than two seconds per animal (farms are equipped with pumping equipment that delivers a measured dose, quickly and gently) I’ve read about birds lining up to be fed; in my experience this is an exaggeration but they are certainly not perturbed and I’ve seen geese walk off with tails wagging after the gavage.

Sheep in shearing pens are handled much more roughly than these birds. The farmers know they won’t get a good liver if the bird is stressed; it’s in their interests to treat them gently. It’s certainly not in their interests to grow the liver as big as possible so the birds can’t stand up. Despite what the activists say about farmers wanting to maximise profits by getting the biggest livers, the premium fresh duck foie gras (classified ‘extra’) is close to 500g; if it gets much bigger than that, the fat simply melts out during the cooking process leaving an inferior product.

Cruel and unnatural?

Some people will tell you it’s natural for a goose or duck to load up on food; it helps them prepare for a long migration. That’s true but not to the extent that it’s done for foie gras. One farmer summed it up for me when I asked if she didn’t think it was cruel to stuff food down a goose’s neck. She agreed it wasn’t natural but said it wasn’t cruel. She genuinely liked her geese and explained that there was a real art to gavaging a bird gently with just the right amount of corn mash.

Another farmer who said much the same, also added that it is hypocritical for a New Zealander (me) to suggest the gavage is unnatural when the New Zealand economy depends on forcing cows to produce hundreds of litres of milk when naturally it would only produce enough for its calf. Point taken. In the end we agreed that most, if not all, animal farming is based on pushing natural behaviours beyond what is natural.

Now for the bad farmers. You need only search YouTube to find some horrific examples of ducks kept in single cages with necks protruding, ready for the next gavage. The pipe is administered twice a day for two weeks with no kind words or gentle stroking – they may as well be on a conveyor belt. This is undoubtedly the shameful side of foie gras farming but is it any worse than battery egg production? Layer hens may not be subjected to force feeding but they do live in those tiny cages for their entire laying lives – an awful lot longer than two weeks.

Just as there are good and bad farmers there is good and bad foie gras. When my French friends buy foie gras in France they make the same distinction many ethical shoppers here make between battery and free-range eggs, or between conventionally raised pork and free range. They buy foie gras (fresh or prepared as a paté) from a local farmer whose reputation they trust. That way they know it will be good quality and that it’s come from a duck or goose that has been free-ranged and well treated during the gavage. Second best is to buy foie gras from one of the established reputable companies that process foie gras from their own contracted farmers in France.

Such a company is Rougié. Based in the Dordogne, it has been producing foie gras since 1875. Le Canard buys Rougié bloc foie-gras from a New Zealand importer.

A Cowardly Protest

People who feel strongly about foie gras would be better to aim their protest action at the governments of France and New Zealand: France for sanctioning the production of foie gras and New Zealand for allowing its importation. But instead of protesting outside parliament or the French Embassy, these activists choose to bully the little guy – a talented young chef who is trying to build a small business in recessionary times.  Pascal Bedel chose to settle his family in this country because it gave him a chance to start his own restaurant and because he admired the Kiwi spirit of equality and fair play. After 6 months of provocation from people I can only describe as bullies, I hope he still feels the same way.

By the Way…

Anyone who wants to avoid eating the product of a force-fed duck should also avoid eating  the readily available imported cans of confit de canard. The duck confit is made from the legs and thighs of fattened ducks. Which means if the protestors really knew what they were protesting against and wished to do it equably and intelligently they should be targeting every business in New Zealand selling imported duck products from France, not just the one small restaurant they’ve identified that serves foie gras.

Posted in Farming, Food politics, France, Fresh Produce | 12 Comments »

Must Have New Gadget

April 16, 2012 by annasalts

I’m a sucker for a new gadget. My kitchen is stuffed full of ‘must-have’ equipment that’s used with great enthusiasm until the next thing comes along. It’s been years since I used my coconut scraper-outer and it took me a while to figure out what the metal thingy was that I found in the back of a drawer recently. It was a croissant cutter. I never used it. It was given to me by a friend who shares my weakness. She’s also given me an asparagus cooker, which was much more useful; and a pair of pink onion goggles, which just made me look silly.

Chef Chris Martinez at La Boca Loca

Yesterday, I fell for a new one. The nice people at La Boca Loca invited me to a cooking demo to celebrate the first birthday of their Wellington restaurant. La Boca is the best little Mexican in the coolest little capital in the world. The food is great, the atmosphere is fun and it serves the best range of top-flight tequila I’ve ever come across. The tequila may have had something to do with my latest ‘must-have’ enthusiasm, but I also blame chefs Chris Martinez and Will Mitchell for inviting me into their kitchen and showing me how they make up to 300 tortillas a night with a gorgeous cast iron tortilla press. It’s an amazing device. You roll out a golf-sized ball of masa dough, pop it on the bottom plate, pull the top plate over and press down. Voila! A perfect 3mm thin tortilla ready for the pan. It’s a rugged looking machine; the sort of gadget that must have been in use for generations. I imagine every Mexican kitchen has one. As I watched Chris make tortilla after tortilla, I started fantasising about making my own. I could take a press down to our boat shed in the Marlborough Sounds, buy a sack of masa flour and get in a load of tequilla. By the time Chris had finished pressing his tortillas, I was having a party to which everyone in our bay was invited. I had passed the point of no return. I had to have one.

Tortilla Press

But where in Wellington would you find a tortilla press? Ontrays, of course. Steven Shekter’s shop has everything. Last time I was there, I nearly bought a strange looking vessel that you use for brewing mate tea. Steven kindly talked me out of it and suggested I try the tea first. Anyway, Steven and I have been tweeting and he’s put aside a tortilla press with my name on it. I’m planning to pick it up tomorrow and introduce it into my kitchen where I can confidently predict it will replace the pasta machine on my bench top. Until the next thing comes along.

Posted in Food Events, Food Trends | 3 Comments »

Roasting Leaves with the Swedish Chef

February 12, 2012 by annasalts

One of the best things about a New Zealand summer is the sudden influx of travellers from other parts of the world. I like meeting people who have come all this way to discover New Zealand, and it’s great to catch up with friends who come ‘home’ for a kiwi Christmas.  I love the enthusiasm with which they slip back into their jandals and reconnect with the things that make a New Zealand summer – fishing, camping, crayfish sandwiches, burnt chops and all.

Swedish Chef, Fia Gulliksson

A few weeks ago, while holidaying in The Marlborough Sounds, I met up with honorary kiwi Fia Gulliksson, a Swedish chef who used to live and work in Wellington. She’d come back with her family for a friend’s wedding. We got talking and, in line with the 2 degrees of separation that connects kiwis everywhere, we realised we’d met before, years ago when I’d delivered fresh pasta to her and Steve Logan at his restaurant, Brer Fox. The Thorndon restaurant is now Le Canard, the restaurant in which I have a half share.

Fia, it turns out, has become a food celeb in her own country.  She owns a tea blending company with her partner Martin and is well known for the booked-out dinner events which she hosts in her gorgeous lakeside boat shed. She also presents a food programme on Sweden’s national radio station. While in New Zealand she was filing interviews with producers and chefs for a kiwi-themed programme which I figured was going to demand a great deal of voiceover translation.

Scandinavia, once thought to offer little but root vegetables, pickled fish and reindeer, has, thanks to chefs and culinary entrereneurs like René Redzepi and Claus Meyer of Noma restaurant, reinvented a culinary culture that blends local ingredients with equal parts of tradition and innovation. The New Nordic Cuisine, as presented in its own manifesto, has a similar philosophy to Italy’s Slow Food movement. It supports a local artisan culture and it makes good use of plants and berries that are sometimes foraged from the wild and often presented in surprising ways.

In the Marlborough Sounds, Fia prepared cavalo nero leaves from my friend Jen Scott’s garden. They were roasted in oil and sprinkled with salt and toasted sesame seeds. We ate them as a crispy snack with pre-dinner drinks but they would also make a delicious garnish. Back home in Sweden, Fia crisps up other types of brassica leaves and sometimes seaweed. If I ever get round to finishing my collection of Marlborough Sounds recipes, this will be in it.

Roasted Cavalo Nero

Posted in Food Hero, Food Trends, Recipe | 3 Comments »

Seasonal Faire

November 28, 2011 by annasalts

Is there a food writer out there that doesn’t urge us to eat ‘seasonal and local’? The universality of the theme in cookbooks and magazines, and on television and radio, make it sound like some sort of foodie trend rather than the natural way of feeding ourselves.

It’s true we did need reminding. Somewhere along the way we lost touch with the natural scheme of things. Seduced by the availability of fresh produce all year round – grapes from California, green beans from Africa – it was easy to eat with no regard to seasonality or country of origin. But I think we’ve got the message.

We get it again in the introduction to Laura Faire’s book Now is the Season, but I like the way she presents it – “not rocket science” – and I like the slightly ironic way she acknowledges herself as “one of a crowd of cooks, gardeners and food writers who have been banging the seasonal drum since the 1970s…”

And then with that out of the way she stops banging on and lets the recipes do the talking. The book is divided into seasons, each one prefaced with a garden calendar because she’s not just a cook she’s also a gardener. She knows what to plant and when to pick it, and because she eats what she grows she’s probably a locavore too. Happily, she’s not a vegetarian; there are some lovely cuts of meat and fish slipped in between the freshly picked greens and bottled fruits.

So I do love this book. But I have to admit, I didn’t expect to. When I first saw Laura Faire’s column in the Sunday Star Times I thought – here we go, another blonde gardener/cook who looks terrific in gumboots. But I’ve been completely won over by her down-to-earth cookbook. It’s beautifully photographed by Kieran Scott who goes close up on the food and the garden. I love the full-page photograph of what I assume to be Faire’s own hands, grubby from the garden with dirt under the nails, opening a pod of broad beans. It’s simple and honest, and it sets the theme for the book.

Each recipe relies on a few fresh tasting ingredients; there’s nothing complicated but there are some lovely combinations. Grapefruit Marmalade Crème Brulée strikes me as a really good idea. I’ll certainly make the Warm Duck and Black Grape Salad; I like the sound of Goat’s Cheese with Lemon and Sage and I’m prepared to try the odd sounding Cauliflower and Cinnamon Soup becasue Faire says it’s her own “emergency dinner party fall-back”.

There are lots of recipes using easy to grow vegetables like kale and jerusalem artichokes, and there are some useful gardening tips, but you don’t need to have a vege plot to use this book. Apart from one or two things like quince and green garlic, the ingredients are readily bought. I only grow a few things myself – tomatoes in the porch and herbs in what was our old sandpit – but I was thrilled to find a couple of recipes for sorrel, which grows like a weed in my patch. I’ve made the sorrel pesto; it’s really tasty and because it’s not cooked it doesn’t lose its bright colour, which is always a problem with sorrel.

I’m embarrassed to say how many cookbooks I own and I’m ashamed to say how little I cook from most of them, but this one is already bristling with little post-it markers, a sure sign I’ll be using it heaps – through summer, autumn, winter and spring.

 

Now is the Season, Laura Faire
Published by New Holland

Posted in Books, Review | 1 Comment »

Vichyssoise my Whey

November 6, 2011 by annasalts

I remember my mother serving vichyssoise at dinner parties in the early 70s. The very name made it sound ‘continental’ and the fact it was served cold made it vogueishly different. She used to tell a story about a society hostess she knew in England who ran out of chives on one occasion and in a last minute panic garnished her vichyssoise with grass clippings. Her guests weren’t fooled but they were too polite to say and she thought she’d got away with it. In fact she was the subject of much hilarious gossip for sometime afterwards.

My Vichyssoise

I’d always assumed the soup was invented in Vichy and I imagined high-ranking nazis ordering it in restaurants during the Occupation. Apparently not. According to Wiki it was created in 1917 by Louis Diat the chef at the Ritz-Carlton in New York who had fond memories of pouring cold milk into his mother’s hot leek and potato soup. A much better story.

A classic vichyssoise is the easiest soup to make – leeks, potatoes, chicken stock and cream – but my version is somewhat different and calls for an ingredient that’s not at all easy to come by.  I’ve discovered that vichyssoise is a great way to make use of the whey that’s left over from a home cheese-making session. I got the idea from Katherine Mowbray who, during a course I attended, suggested using whey in soups such as leek and potato. Since I only ever make goats’ cheese, I thought I’d try to make a cold soup with goats’ milk whey. It was fantastic and, I think, quite original. The thing about a classic vichyssoise is the way it combines rustic earthiness with chilled sophistication. Substituting goats’ whey adds another dimension. It’s a subtle goatiness that’s elegant, not at all overpowering. I guess you could use cow or sheeps’ milk whey (even buffalo) and you’d get a slightly different result but – as I say – I only make goats’ cheese so other variants are untested.

I know people complain like mad if a recipe’s published and they can’t get the ingredients, so you’re not likely to see this in a magazine but if you do  happen to get hold of some whey, here it is: Vichyssoise my Whey. I’ve also served it in shot glasses with a drop of cream and a snip of chives (never grass) to garnish. And if anyone does make it with whey from another type of milk, I’d love to hear about it.

Vichyssoise au Chèvre

50g butter

3 medium leeks, white part only, sliced thinly

3 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

1 teaspoon salt

white pepper to taste

1 bay leaf

1.5 litres goats’ milk whey

1 cup water

cream (or sour cream) and chives to garnish

Melt butter in a large pot and sweat leeks over medium-low heat for about 10 minutes until soft, stirring occasionally to prevent browning. Add potatoes, salt, pepper,  bayleaf, whey and water. Bring to boil, reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes until potatoes are soft. Remove from heat. Extract bayleaf then puree soup in a blender.

Serve cold with a splash of cream or a blob of sour cream and a few snippets of chive.

 

Posted in Cheese, Recipe | 1 Comment »

Making Cheese with Biddy

October 30, 2011 by annasalts

Biddy Fraser-Davies

I first met Biddy Fraser-Davies back in 2005 when I wrote about her for Cuisine magazine and produced a farming feature for Radio New Zealand. In those days she’d just started producing cheese on her farmlet and no one had heard of her or her much-loved cow, Gwendolyn. She was a real find, great talent with a no-nonsense approach and a cheerful eccentricity that fit her as comfortably as her bright pink crocs. Since then she’s starred on Country Calendar and been written up by numerous magazines and newspapers. Biddy and her milking cows – currently Sally and Molly – are the poster girls of the artisan cheese movement, and, as befits their celebrity status, they’ve just released their own DVD.

It’s called Farmhouse Cheese Making: an instructional DVD showing how Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese is produced. It features Molly the cow on the cover and stars Biddy the dairymaid in apron and boots.  A self-taught cheesemaker, she begins by admitting it took her a full year of trial and error to achieve the consistently good cheeses she sells today. The DVD aims to help others short track the learning process. Together with the comprehensive cow-to-cheese manual, which can be found on the Cwmglyn Farm website, it’s an excellent introduction to the cheesemaker’s craft.

Cwmglyn Farmhouse Cheese

I learned how to make cheese by attending a class run by Katherine Mowbray. Her courses are very good and I often refer to her book but what I like about Biddy’s DVD is that you can re-run it again and again. So if you can’t recall how firm the curds should be before you cut them, you can replay the episode.

Fresh Curds

Biddy demonstrates the semi hard, naturally rinded farmhouse cheese she produces herself, but the process is similar for most of the cheeses you’re likely to make. Factors like the type of milk, the culture and temperature all play their part but once you have the feel for the basic technique you can adapt it to recipes for soft white-moulded brie or pungent washed-rind cheeses like Pont l’Eveque.

I’m not sure if Biddy has ever been a teacher but I reckon she’s a natural. She manages to cover the technical stuff while making the whole process look as easy as it is – once you know the pitfalls. Listen carefully when she says: “Now this is important…” and you’ll avoid the mistakes that most of us make.

Homemade Cheese Press

Her own small cheesery is purpose-built and licensed for commercial production but much of her equipment has been adapted from every-day utensils – coffee filters are used to strain the milk and a perforated pasta cooker stands in for a cheese mould. Tips like this demystify the process and make the point that cheese making doesn’t have to be expensive.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned – and Biddy emphasises this again and again – it’s that you really do have to be super hygienic. The last lot of cheese Dan and I made got infected with blue mould and I’ve had nasty pink spots ruin the virginal bloom of an otherwise perfect goat camembert. But most of the time we get it right and sometimes our little cheeses are good enough to photograph.

A memorable goats' milk 'camembert' style cheese

Farmhouse Cheese Making: An Instructional DVD costs $40 plus postage. Details on Cwmglyn Farm website: www.modelrailway.co.nz

Posted in Cheese, Food Hero, Review | 3 Comments »

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