Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1874-09-11
Annexed Greece.
now THE PATE DE FoK GRAs Is PREPARED
THg PIE FACTORIES At sTRAsBURG.


now THE PATE DE FoR GRAs Is PREPARED
THE PIE FACTORIES AT sTRAsBURG.
When the Prussians annexed Strasbure
they gained something more than city o
10000 inhabitants, a first rate cathedral
and that unique steeple clock where cock
crows over the head of twelve apostles, q
skeleton, and pagan divinity every day al
noon. They acquired some $50 900 French
geese who every year waddled solemnly into
tae city through the seven castellated doors
and, like patriotic fowls as they were. offer
cd up their livers on the altars of their
country's greatness. 1t was no slight
present. These livers, cased with Perigor5
truiile inside block tins or terra-cotta pots
from Sar reguemines, were scattered over the
wide world as pateS de foie gras. causing the
name ,of France to be blessed by all na-
tives and foreigners who had a taste for good
things. Nor can it be contended that
Strasburg derived less than half her fame
from the sale OF these pies. The French,
who deal with history as it suits them, con-
tend that the pate de toie gras was well
known TO the Romans, for that those sacred
geese who We're nourished in the capitol
and who warned Manlius, were nothing but
! geese kept at high diet, like those of Stras-
/ burg, that their livcrs might be enlarged
/ Without disputing that statement, one may
say that it Is only in very recent times that
the process Of preparing geese for the pie
market has been brought 10 perfection. If
/ the Roman augurs dealt in goose liver they
must have had recourse to barbarous iron
coops, wherein the bird was kept imprison-
/ cd all but his neck, which protruded through
an aperture and could not be Withdrawn.
\ lively fire was kept up in the neighbor-
hood OF the cooTs, and the goose got on as
he could with three meals day till the
time arrived for killing him. But this sys-
TEN was discarded some thirty years ago,
because II was cruei-nOt to the goose bat
to his owner, who generally saw four birds
out Of five die prematurely Of exhaustion.
Supposlng we enter one Of the most famous
ioi-sras factories in a retired street of Stras-
burg, We shall see how those worn out
methods have been superseded by modern
Improvements. \ cool yard greets Us. and
bland frenchman, who has become Ger
manized, like his geese, by the force of cir
cumstanees, points to some hundred feath-
cred bipeds huddled together in a corner and
Kissing chorus with despairing energy.
In former days they would have been sing
ng "DlHee ef deo0rum ea pro pGfrla mori -
but now 1t is evident they are indulging in
dlrse over the customs duties which they
Will be obliged to pay before being allowed
to reach the breakfast tables of their own
people. Their proprietor explains that they
are all nine months old, and have cost him,
lean As they arc, about two francs fifty cen
times piece; he then makes a sign 10 half
"a ID oil ri~l- lf. =
French, and amid considerable commotion
and protest from the remaining ninety-four,
six geese are collarcd and marched away to
a cellar half underground where wide and
sloplng stone tables are arranged in tiers SO
far as the eve can see. In the murky light
thrown in by some twenty air-holeS one can
at first distinguish nothing but by-and-by
II becomes apparent that hundreds of geese
are already lying strapped on their backs on
the upper tiers and gasping hysteric things
probably words ofloye and encouragement
TO one another. Our business heing for
the moment at the lower tables, the six
girls take each their goose. lay him gently
but firmly on the stone. so that his tail Just
projects over the ledge, ard then tie down
his wings, body and leg- with plated whip
cord, tie legs and wings being well spread
out to paralyze anything ike vigorous
eylnnastics The BIRDS neck is lett free,
and it seems that during the first three days
lie makes Il violent use of il; but toward the
fourth day he arrives at the Consciousness
that by struggling and croaking he does
nothing TO amend his lot, and from that
time be may be trusted to lie still for the
next seven weeks; that is till the hour Of
release and killing. Without pausing 10
see all the hundred geese tied down, We
may % at once TO the upper tiers, where
the birds have been lying for thee, five, or
six weeks respectively, are taking their case
and waiting to be fed by half dozen other
Alsatian girls, laden with large wooden
/ bowls. Each of these bowls is filed with a
thick white paste. made Of parboiled maize,
chcstuuts and buckwheat, most n0urishing
and the mode of administering the dinner Is
for the girl to catch the goose bv the neck,
open his bill with a little squeeze, and then
ram three or four balls of the paste down
hls throat with her middle finger The
goose having been thus refreshed. resumes
his slanting position and digests till the next
time for feeding, which arrived about two
hours after, the meals being about six day.
But now We have done with the women, for
a pensiyc man-a cJnnoisseur Of the OBESITY
Of geese-breaks upon the scene, climbs up
on the topmost tier OF all, and proceeds To
examine the birds who may be ripe.
He has an eye as .iudicious as that Of gard
ner inspecting melons; and his is the re
sponsible task Of pronouncing what birds
would die of natural death within twenty
four hours if not despatched beforehand. If
goose dies Of natural death he is good for
nothing. lie must be unstrapped and exc
cuted at the precise psychological moment
when nature Is tired of Supporting him, and
! the knack Of detecting that moment can only
come Of long practice, and ietches the pos
sessor wages aS large as those of diamond
yaluer Our pensye tunctionary has not
been a minute on the table before he GER
tifes four geese ready Tor the slaughter.
All four of them have stomachs of the size
of pumpkins, and from what one can gather
of their broken remarks, 1t Is a sincere re-
! lief Of these when couple of male acolytes
climb up, loose their bonds, and bear them
ont of the cellar to penthouse across the
yard, full Of knives and chopping blocks. A
click with the chopper on the neck of each,
| a rip with the knife, and, in less than five
minutes after their transfer, the carcas>es of
the four victims are lying in heap, while
| spect to the truflling house. The carcasses,
shrivelled out of all knowledge, are sold for
about eight pence apiece to peasants, who
make soup OF them the livers are first
| cleaned. then put to scale and our four geese
are declared grand birds all of them, for
| their livcrs weigh from two and half to
/ three pounds each. The next step is to
| take each liver and lard it with trufiies in
| the proportion Of one-half pound Of trufiles
| to one pound of liver, and then to convey it
/ to an ice house, where il remains on mar
/ bic slab for week that the trufle perfume
may thoroughly penetrate it. At the end of
| a week, each liver. being removed, is cut in
to the size required for the pot which it is
to fill. and introduced into that pot between
two thin LAYERS of mince-meat made of the
/ finest veal and bacon fat, both truflled like
/ the liver itself; and one inch depth of the
whtish lard Is then spread over the whole,
/ that none IF the SAVIOR may escape in bak-
ing. The baking takes about five hours,
and absorb@ all the energies of four intelli-
gent Frenchmcn in white, who relay each
other, to see that the fire never blazes too
high or sinks too low. When the cooking
is over, nothing remains but to pack the
dainty either in tin or earth or wood, ac-
cording as it may be needed for home or
foreign consumption, and to ship it to the
four points Of the compass. A question
may here arise as to how many geese die
naturally before the above processes can be
carried out to happy end but itisa pleas
ing fact that few geese die, and those only
ill-regulated birds who had unsound consti-
tutions. or no ambition for high destin-
les. 1t is on record, however, that mem
ber of the Society for the Suppression of
Cruelty to Animals once arrived in Stras-
burg armed with the Larcchefoucauld law,
and eudeayored to cope with the pie factors;
but he was worsted, and there are strong
reasons for suspecting that he was Social
| ist.-PGH Mall GG=ofte.
An eastern newspaper is astonished at the
statement that grasshoppers chew tobacco.
There is a colony of cockroaches in this