when you don't check your yahoo mail account

often i forget i have another email address. and today i saw that there were 27 new messages, from the foodie group. there have been conversations going on, new members being welcomed, angst about templates and such, pleadings about editing out old hotmail addresses. and silence from me.

i'm sorry guys. if any of you still come here after what you probably thought was my icy, stony cold silence. i still love you all.

but i have been exceedingly busy of late. trying to finish this fucking thesis. it is on my mind all the time, and now i have an extension until the 31st of may.

and yesterday i was in court supporting a friend who had an application for an intervention order taken out against him by a psycho who is actually the one doing all the bad stuff, like hitting people, and swearing at them most disgustingly.

anyway, he is coming to dinner tonight along with another couple.

what to cook. what to cook?

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i tried to look up hunkar begendi in my copy of larousse gastronomique. it wasn't there but this was:


foie gras

preparations made from the livers of fattened geese and ducks were know to the ancients. the goose was regarded by the romans not only as a sacred animal, from the time when a goose saved the capitol, but also as a succulent one, for its meat and liver were highly prized by the gourmets of this time.

the romans used various methods of fattening ducks and thereby causing a considerable swelling of hte liver. history tells us that in order to fatten goose livers, scipio metellus, a roman gastronome, had the idea of plunging the livers, warm from the still panting bird, in a bath of milk and honey, where they were left for several hours. when taken out of the milk, the livers were considerably swollen and it is said (though we can scarcely believe it) endowed with a richer flavour.

one thing is certain, the fat goose livers upon which the romans feasted were very large indeed.

in cookey the name foie gras is used only of goose or duck liver fattened in a special way.

these livers, especually those of geese, sometimes grow to a considerable size. the livers of toulouse and strasbourg geese sometimes wiegh as much as 4 pounds (2 kilos).

foie gras is regarded as one of the greatest delicacies available. 'The goose,' says C. Gerard, author of L'Ancienne Alsace a table, 'is nothing, but man has made of it an istrument for the output of a marvellous product, a kind of living hothouse in which grows the supreme fruit of gastonomy.'

this 'fruit' is foie gras, from which are made the succulent potted products and marvellous pates made in some french towns such as strasbourg, toulouse, perigneux, nancy etc.

the finest foies gras come from geese reared in alsace and south-western france. toulouse foies gras are greatly sought after. duck foie gras is also very delicate but having a tendency to disintegrate in cooking, lends itself less satisfactorily to the many ways, hot or cold, in which foie gras can be prepared. other european countries (besides france) produce very good goose foie gras, notably austria, czechoslovakia and the duchy of luxembourg.

[taken from auge, gillon, hollier-larousse, moureau & ci (1961) larousse gastronomique,
paris: paul hamlyn limited. p. 418]