There Once was a Happy Gosling

If you've made an ethical choice never to eat foie gras, now’s your chance. There's a farm in Spain so ethical you could eat your dinner off it, and their foie gras is award winningly tasty.

Foie Gras
Ordinarily, foie gras is made from the swollen, pale livers of force-fed fowl. After 4 months the bird is caged and fed maize by a pump 2-5 times per day. It takes several weeks before the bird is ready. Studies have shown that mortality rises 3% during this period, but the ethical findings are still murky.

The Patería de Sousa dispels this ethical uncertainty. Founded in 1812, it is a family-run pâté shop, 100km north of Seville in the Badajoz province of Western Spain. Their goose liver confit is made in collaboration with free-range geese; the artisan’s job is to provide a home alluring enough so they’ll stick around. In 2006, it was awarded the Coup de Coeur for innovation by the influential Paris International Food Show in France. Not only was the pâté superlative but the geese were said to force-feed themselves. That confused me so I decided to look for myself.

El Pueblo
The beautiful pueblo of Fuente de Cantos – home to the proprietor Eduardo Sousa – could not have been more provincial. White houses on white streets so bright you could catch a tan in the shade. It was sleepy, rustic and humble. The patería was tiny, like the deli of an elf, and difficult to find. Eduardo met me for a coffee in the neighbouring taverna and asked if I would like to see the geese.

Garden of Eden
On the way to the farm, 20km out of town, Eduardo told me that if a goose can avoid predators she can live until she is 70 years old, ‘como una persona’, like a person. She has to be wily, of course, but if kept well and fed like a queen, she has better odds. While wandering the paddocks of Eduardo Sousa, I had the feeling that a goose here could live forever. He had engineered a Garden of Eden. Not only was the menu rich and delectable but the surroundings were ambitious with ingenious design. He had just planted new saplings to protect the earthen nests (geese lay their eggs on the ground) to provide shade from the hot fingers of the summer sun and to hinder the observation of soaring predators. Why build a farmhouse when you can plant trees? He keeps a rig of pipes and sprinklers on the hill to douse the heat from the gaggle with an atomised mist. ‘It is important,’ he tells me, ‘for the animals to feel comfortable or else they do not eat. If they do not eat, then perhaps they will fly away before winter.’ It seemed a sensible rule of thumb, but looking at the happy, babbling gaggle, I doubted they’d raise a wing. In answer to my gaze he smiled and told me, ‘you can see they eat a lot.’

No one would blame them. He keeps fig, olive, chestnut and oak trees, all with delicious fruits for fattening geese. When asked why his foie gras looks and tastes so fine, he answers that ‘it is the work of nature.’ Indeed, the paddocks are laced with sprouting wild pepper and other sapid shrubs. The delectable seeds from the lupin bush, a local, yellow flowering shrub, dye their livers luminous yellow, not unlike the colouring that arises with force-fed maize. With olives, pepper, figs, chestnuts, lupin, and more, it is evident why the flavours deserve commendation. Nevertheless, the question remained; how does it work?

The Happy Method
The eggs are laid in the earth and the mothers sit upon them, safeguarded by the honking gaggle. Only the smartest and toughest survive naturally. Of the 50 eggs per mother goose, around 20 hatch in spring. Four months later, ordinarily, foie gras geese are force-fed and then killed. Eduardo’s geese have more time. They are what are known as ‘resident’ geese. Migration in geese, despite popular myth, is predominantly a learned behaviour, though a weak migratory instinct tugs if habitual conditions are not satisfied. Goslings, consequently, must be taught to migrate by their parents.
I have seen them, their wings are not clipped, yet Eduardo’s geese, treated to the best, no longer migrate. In fact, immigration is more likely. During an interview with a French news channel, a gaggle passing over the farm heard the honks of the geese below. They looped back and landed, not as visitors, but as fresh neighbours. Fresh genes.


Immigration or no, all geese need fat for the chill, so they start eating 9 months in advance. By the time they reach their second winter, their livers have swollen to twice their normal size, engorged with two years of flavour. No force-feeding, no discomfort, no drugs.
180g goes for €95 but stocks are finite. If you want a taste, place the order in November for receipt in the New Year.

Gimme, gimme, gimme!
While you are waiting, gather the gourmands and order a bottle of Rivera del Duero Gran Reserva. When Eduardo Sousa’s award winning foie gras arrives, cut it thick and sear with a hot pan. Season, relax and prepare yourselves. This is pâté from a man who has swallows nesting in his farmhouse, from a man who is greeted by waddling geese like a playful father, from a man for whom the idea of force-feeding is ‘an insult to history’. Think about that. Then take a bite and prepare yourself for the romance of food, for the savoury marriage of ethics and flavour. This is nature’s testament. It could mean a revolution. Treasure it, dwell on it, and then, when it is over, tell your friends.

To place an order with the Patería de Sousa or to enquire about his farming school, email Eduardo Sousa at 924500750@telefonica.net or visit www.ibergour.es