Foie gras without force-feeding? In Alsace, a farm produces “golden liver”

“I won’t make foie gras in ten years. » Aline Meyer knows it, her announcement is a bit daring. For around forty years, his family has been producing the famous dish on their farm in Gundershoffen (Bas-Rhin). Better still, it is today one of the farm’s main sources of income.

But then, why want to stop? Because the thirty-year-old (37 years old) has embarked on another path for two years. An alternative currently being tried with geese and perhaps one day ducks: the “Golden liver”. “Don’t write that it’s foie gras without force-feeding, the repression of fraud would fall on me!”, she intervenes. We don’t have the right to call it that, that’s why we chose that name. »

“Try them so that they want to eat”

Here, no fattening using a tube for around two weeks. No, his geese must be overfeeding on their own. “We know that naturally, they will stuff themselves in order to have reserves for migrations. That is to say from September, when the days decline. The idea is therefore to tempt them so that they want to eat,” explains the Alsatian farmer, aware that her approach is not necessarily well seen by her colleagues. Especially since, for the moment, she has not (yet) found the right formula.

Until now, the innovative process was more or less established: a classic food, that is to say a mixture of seeds for the first month inside, then “a few treats little by little to give them the taste “. “For example, we brought them honey, bread, cakes, spaetzle. Little things so as not to just eat the basic portion and tempt them,” explains Aline Meyer, who then leaves the herd free in an orchard. “Where apples, plums, plums, cherries fall. Then we sometimes add gingerbread, raisins, etc. The goal is really that the geese want to return there. »

“Geese get stressed very quickly”

In October, the first results of this method seemed convincing. “Some livers had reached 400 grams, the minimum weight that we set to call it Golden Liver. » Except that what followed turned out to be more disappointing. “We did work on photovoltaic panels. Even though the installers were discreet, it made some noise. Geese get stressed very quickly…” So they stopped overeating and their livers very rarely exceeded the limit. Instead of the 800 to 900 grams obtained after force-feeding, many capped “between 250 and 350”.

Result, “only 2.2 kg of foie d’Or” produced this year. “I admit that I was disappointed because I was hoping for 6 to 7 kg but it doesn’t matter. Already because we transformed all the small livers into Gold mousse and also because it allows us to learn lessons for the future,” assures Aline Meyer who plans several improvements next year.

“More than double the price of foie gras”

“Already, we will no longer do any work because there is no need for any stress on the geese. Then, we will confine them for the last two weeks. I didn’t want it but we have no choice, they have to stop exerting themselves at that point. Really, everything will have to coincide for us to get there. » So that production becomes more consistent, even one day competitive with foie gras.

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In terms of price, there is still some way to go. This year, almost the entire production of “foie d’Or” was purchased “by a Swiss MP because his country is perhaps going to ban the importation of foie gras and he wants people to taste this alternative”. At what price? The operator does not wish to go into detail, “but it was more than double the price of foie gras”. That is at least 350 euros per kilo, compared to around 175 for goose foie gras from the farm. “Ultimately, I want to make this product accessible,” insists Aline Meyer, convinced by her project. “The texture, we’re there. We are also very close to the taste… The line is drawn. »