After our truffle experience on Sunday, we decided to up the ante and drive over to the Musée du Foie Gras, located off the beaten track about 10kms south-east of Villeneuve sur Lot.
Souleille Foie Gras is near the border of Lot et Garonne and Tarn et Garonne, in hilly country dotted with farms and woods.
Apparently, it heaves on a summer's Friday when there is a market, al fresco food and a carnival atmosphere, but this was a winter's Tuesday and we were the only ones there.
We rang the bell. A French-speaking girl came to let us in and take our five euros enrtrance fee. She gave us a guide to the museum in English. No photos allowed.
It was clear from the start they'd put a lot of effort into this museum. This was no tourist add-on to a duck farm. This was a carefully thought-out interpretive centre of breadth and depth.
It explained that wild ducks and geese naturally induced oversized, fatty livers. They did so by gorging food prior to undertaking long, migratory flights.This gave them the energy store to make those incredible distances. Their livers would expand to ten times their normal size. It was an evolutionary adaptation.
At some point in antiquity, men discovered that these migrating birds had adnormally large livers which, when cooked, had an exquisite taste. They found they could produce the same result by force-feeding domestic geese and ducks. Foie gras was born.
To illustrate just how far back the practice goes, there is a copy of a bas relief showing the ancient Egyptians force feeding geese.
After spending a good hour in the museum, we sat in a small theatre and watched a half-hour video about the history of the farm. It ended with some yummy recipes that set the audience up for the final phase of the experience ... the shop!
The French-speaking girl who welcomed us had been replaced by Nicole, an engaging Englishwoman who's been living in this area for 15 years.
She had some wonderful samples for us to try. We were thrilled to have visited this excellent attraction.
http://www.souleilles-foiegras.com/
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