Can Dan Barber Produce a Humane Foie Gras?

Dana Velden
Dana Velden
Dana Velden's first book, Finding Yourself in the Kitchen: Kitchen Meditations and Inspired Recipes from a Mindful Cook (Rodale Books) is available where ever books are sold. She lives in Oakland, CA.
published Dec 8, 2011
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(Image credit: Apartment Therapy)

Several years ago, we posted Dan Barber’s amazing TED talk about how he witnessed a more humane way to produce the delicious but controversial fatted goose liver called foie gras. The talk is classic Dan Barber, full of self-deprecating humor and his clearly passionate relationship to food. After his discovery of this more humane method, which eschews gavage, or force feeding, Barber (sort of) vows to never serve conventional foie gras in his restaurants again.

Barber is the chef and co-owner of the well-known Blue Hill at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, New York which is a part of an organic, sustainably run working farm. Can he duplicate this method on his farm and once again serve this favorite ingredient?

This past week Ira Glass, on his radio program This American Life, ran a piece in which he interviews Barber about his attempts to recreate the conditions necessary to raise non-gavage foie gras geese at Stone Barns. It’s definitely a work in progress, with almost four years of experiments and missteps. And it sounds like its getting rather expensive, too. But Barber seems determined to make it work. If you found Barer’s TED talk interesting or inspiring, then I highly recommend you listen to this next chapter in the tale.

• You can listen to the Dan Barber interview, called Latin Liver, here on the This American Life website.

Related: Take Your Break with Dan Barber’s Goose Whisperer

(Image: Blue Hill Farm)

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