Field Notes - Flights of Fancy - Geese

The rather sultry soundtrack of November is not only about cold fingers tapping on the barometer and raindrops on rooftops. Over the ploughed and purposeful fields of Lot et Garonne, the air is full with the honky tonk of departing geese. Like feathered fighter jets, you will hear them before you see them — a ragged, cloud-bound squadron, formed as a straggly V, calling desperatey to each other to keep things together. It's comfortingly instinctive - a DNA thing. I love seeing that in nature.

Our French countryside is ripe with change. The vines are flicking through the pantones of yellow and orange, here and there a bunch of shrivelled raisins saying "you missed a spot". It's a season of departure and all of nature seems self-aware. Our geese feel the need to heed a higher calling and in their passage to warmer weather, we feel both melancholy and comfort. Perhaps even some casual envy, as we suspect their landing will be in a place significantly more sunny. They take to the moody sky, each call echoing encouragement, each bird drafting for the one behind. It is a lesson in belonging written annually, on a parchment of high cloud and prevailing wind.

Of course it's not all pain et chocolat. Geese in our region carry another story too. They are not only symbols of season, but also of culinary culture. November is the month when foie gras is prepared. A tradition embraced with careful gusto and a prcatice trodden deeply into the carpet of Gascon culture. Producers sell from market stalls and kitchen doors. Its the time of hissing pans, rendered fat and the clatter of knives working through generational rituals that neither time nor popular opinion is able to wither.

To talk of foie gras here is to set out on fairly thin ice - the people of Aquitaine have a guilt resilience that is thick armour against any suggestion of cruelty or fowl play. It is their food, that they eat and their is simply no room for a vigorous moral arm wrestle. For some, it is the very essence of French festivity; for others, it rings a personal alarm bell of opinion and adopted offendedness. But to dismiss it would be to down-thumb a vital part of this region’s honoured culture, which is perhaps not really ours to be offended by.

Vanessa and I did not agree on foie gras, in the same way we agree on other foodie things. We have decided never again to eat Octopus after seeing Craig Foster's choice-changing documentary "My Octopus Teacher". Vanessa sees the "issues" first — the force-feeding, the discomfort it stirs in modern conscience. I, meanwhile, am possibly guilty of ethical avoidance, by focusing on the heritage, the local tradition, the cultural and economic importance to our community. Oh... and the fact that I absolutely adore the stuff. Not in an "always in the fridge" way, but when 'tis the season, game on. Neither of us is wrong, of course. It’s simply one of those culinary conundrums where the epicurean and the empath have a bit of a wrestle at the kitchen table. The curous nature of these perfectly rational points of view, is that they are still a source of fairly judgement by others. Like my choice is a red flag to some wider moral failing, where Vanessa is welcome and should stay for tea and biscuits.

We once elected to try and make sense of our respective positions on this poshest of pâtés, at the nearby Foie Gras Museum in the village of Frespech - (Yes, there is one...). There we learned that the practice stretches back to ancient Egypt, and that here in Aquitaine, it is less “luxury” than lineage. Like any agricultural process that puts protein on our plates, there is methodology in play. There are practices. The same ones that can either deprive a chicken of sunlight and pasture, or allow it to range freely. Here is where our trip to the ethical ballot box can begin. Do we pay slightly more and buy directly from a traditional producer, where the geese are lovingly hand-fattened on the lap of the farmers wife? Or do we pay less and back the factory,where tube and funnel are mechanical and mean? Alternatively do we not buy it at all and I choose "fitting in" over "belonging".

What we took away is this: you can defend something as culture without advocating it as diet. We will both eat foie gras, but not often. We will always pay up for ethically produced product, we try not to support industrial farming, but we respect the economics of those who are not able to enjoy that position.

So perhaps museums (even the odd ones) are good places to begin understanding. Where things that are "difficult" live. Honoured, explained, and left for each of us to decide whether to taste, decline, or simply smile at the absurdity of it all. Like it or not, we make our choices at the checkout.

For us at Platform 13, it is a deliberate disassociation. We don’t look skywards and say “Wow, they look tasty..” But serve me a chilled sliver with a sugar-sharp onion chutney and I am gaga for foie gras.

So we watch with awe, the geese that got away. They are reminders that life is not neat or singular. We gather to eat, to remember, to celebrate, and sometimes to wrestle with our culinary conscience. C’est ça, la vie…