A Cook's Tour_ In Search of the Perfect Meal - Anthony Bourdain [25]
My brother, who is usually pretty daring in his tastes these days when it comes to food, had ordered the sole. I’d ignored his good example. During the meal, he’d looked at me as if I were gnawing the flesh off a dead man’s fingers and washing it down with urine. By any parameters, it had been disgusting; undercooked, tough, seemingly devoid of cheek, tasting of some dark refrigerator and, worst of all, absolutely slathered with a thick, vile-tasting sauce gribiche – a kind of mayonnaise/tartar sauce variation made from cooked egg yolks. I’d swallowed as much as I could for the benefit of the cameras, trying to look cheerful about it, and, far too late, simply said, ‘Fuck it!’ then tried sneaking away half my food into a napkin concealed below the table (as I had not wanted to offend the chef).
So the next morning, at eight o’ clock, feeling none too fine from what had easily been the worst head I’d ever had, I found myself standing in a cold barn, watching my genial host, foie gras farmer and producer Monsieur Cabenass, jam a pipe from a long, long funnel down the throat of a less-than-thrilled-looking duck and begin grinding what looked like a food mill until a fistful of cornmeal disappeared down the creature’s gullet. All this before breakfast.
The funnel seemed to reach the very bottom of the duck’s stomach. Monsieur Cabenass would give the ducks a stroke, nudge them not too forcefully between his legs, tilt their heads back, and then give them the business. Seeing such a thing with an undigested wad of veal head still roiling in your stomach tends to inspire the gag reflex. Global Alan, the shooter who’d been standing next to Monsieur Cabenass, certainly seemed to think so: He suddenly turned an awful hue of green and went running for the door, disappearing for the rest of the morning.
Though not feeling too good myself, I endured a learned discourse and demonstration of the entire process of raising and feeding ducks and geese for foie gras. It was not as cruel as I’d imagined. The animal’s feet are not nailed to a board, as some have said. They are not permanently rigged up to a feeding tube, endlessly pumped with food like some cartoon cat while they struggle and choke in vain. They are, in fact, fed twice a day – and each time a considerably lesser amount comparative to body weight than, say, a Denny’s Grand Slam Breakfast. Monsieur Cabenass did not strike me as a cruel or unfeeling man, he appeared to have genuine affection for his flock, and, more often than not, the ducks would actually come to him when it was funnel time. He’d simply reach out an arm and they’d come, no more reluctantly than a child having his nose wiped by his mother.
He held up one particularly plump duck and let me run my hand over its swollen belly, its warm, protruding liver. He was not yet ‘harvesting,’ though he showed me some photos – a display akin to a highway safety film, and about as appetizing. Ordinarily, I like blood and guts, but rarely do I like them first thing in the morning. And never with the sound of a violently heaving and coughing cameraman in the distance. By the time we retired next door to the little shop where the Cabenass clan sell their products, I was not feeling well at all.
For my tasting pleasure, Madame Cabenass had assembled a spread of conserve de foie gras, mousse de foie gras, rillettes de canard, and confit, along with some sliced croutons of baguette and a bottle of Sauternes. The Cabenass product was