Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-04-06
THE PATE DE FOIE GRAS.
HISTORY OF THIS DELICATE DISH
 so POPULAR IN FRANCE.

so POPULAR IN FRANCE.
 Death of Its Greatest Maker-How the
 Goose Livers Are Made Fat-Apocryphal Story of Dumas-The Famous Pies of Strasburg-Givins Them a Soul.
 At Cohnar, in Alsace, died in his Fist
 year q worthy bourgeois named Jean
 Mangold, who, in the opinion of all save
 some members of the medical profession,
 deserved well, not only of his own coun- l try, but of the whole world. Colmar,
 the antique Columbaria of the Romans,
 next to Strasburg, is unsurpassed for the
 fabrication of ''pates de foie gras." The
 friends of the late M. MangoId, indeed, who was for many years the leading | pastry cook at Co1mar, claim that his l pies were even superior to those made at
 Strasburg. M. Mangold was a poet to | boot, and composed a large number of | local ldyls, satires, vaudevilles and songs
 sor music. But it will be with his pies,
 ana not nc, with his poems in his hand that he will probably go down to postesity. 1t might be desirable in the outset to stlgmatize as wholly apocryphal the story
 to which Alexandre Dumas the elder, in his "Dictionnaire de Cuisine" has given
 currency as to the horrible tortures in- hlcted on the Alsatian geese in order to
 fatten their ivers to the degree required oy the pastry cooks. Starting with the postulate that the liver of the bird can only be fattened by the tumefaction of that organ, and that for pie making pur- poses the goose ivers should be ten or twelve times the normal size, the author ot Monte Cristo" goes on to say that the wretched bipeds are nailed by their web feet to boards, that their eyes are put out, and that they are necessarily stuffed with pounded nuts and deprived of water
 srUFFING THE LIVE BIRDS.
 Another alarmist, improving on Alex andre Dumas, asserts that the nailed down geese are placed before raging fire and allowed to drink as much wafer as they like, thus leading to enlarge ment of the liver. As a matter of fact. the birds, like capons and turkeys. are no doubt systematically crammed, usually with paste made of Indian corn and millet; but there is no more truth in the wild stories of tho nailed down feet, the blinding and the semi roasting in front of an ardent fire than there is in the tales that turtle soup is made of conger eel and the sauce called soy from cockroaches.
 Toulouse, in the south of France, Ruff = Bordela1s, have in modern times, rivaled Strasburg and Colmar in the making of
 'pates de foie gras;" and there are cu1in- ary antlquaries who maintain that pasties of fatted goose ivers are a Gallo-Roman survival of Apician origin. The mode of fattening the geese was somewhat cruel The birds were cooped Ill solitary confinement in very narrow cages, three times day they were gorged with maize, and, on the twenty second day of cramming, a spoonful of poppy oil was added to the corn; water was freely given them, but it was always mixed with sweet wort from the brewery. At the end of forty-two days the goose became so fat as to be in dan ger of suffocation and was therefore killed. Its proper weight should then be about sixteen pounds, out of which the liver should weigh thirty-two ounces. Another quicker but more eqnivocal way ot fattenlng the geese was to mix anti mony with the farinaceous paste with winch the birds were crammed
 HOW TO MAKE THE PIE.
 AtStrasburg the construction of pate IS serious and even solemn affair. Six fattened lvers are the ordinary pabulum for pie; they must first be washed in many waters and then parboiled, and are next scrupulously trimmed so as to free them from all fibrous substance and from any matter approaching bitterness in flavor. Each liver is then cut in two. and, out of the dozen, three are chosen to be beaten in mortar and passed through sieve with bacon, shalots, parsley and mushrooms, so as to make farce" or forcemcat, which Is boiled. half flyers are then larded with the finest Perigord truffles, cut in the shape of | dice, and the contents of the pie are made 1 to consist of layers of liver, truff1es and 1 forcemeat. Two hours are sufficient to bake this dainty dish, fit to be set before a whole congress of kings and emperors. When the pie Is withdrawn from the oven the top crust should be deicately l lifted and large glass of Madeira poured | into the interior. Then it should be her medically closed, so as to be fit to be at | most ends of the earth.
 It remains, however, to show how these famous pies came to be made at | Strasburg and Colmar at all. Only 100 l years have elapsed since the French 1 military governor of the province of | Alsace, Marshal de Contades, brought | with him to Strasburg as cook a Nor man by the name of Close. Alsace was already remarkable for 1t "terrines" of | fat goose flyers, which were preserved in earthen pipkins with layer of clarified butter under the cover. They were somewhat rudely prepared, and lacked one supreme accessory. The artistio Close practically exclaimed, "Pipkin, thou shalt become pie" He discarded the earthen jar and Imprisoned the rich livers in casket of pie crust "The body is there," continued the enthusiastic chef, Eve must now give it soul;" and he found spiritual element for his pie in the exciting perfume of the Peri gordian truff1e. Close, the Norman, must be considered as the inventor of the Strasburg pie. - London Daily News.