Tuesday 8 May 2018

Foie Gras in The Death Throws




The Glenwood Restaurant has cooked many vegetables. It has sincerely and determinedly doffed its cap to the champions of animal rights – and to the animals themselves. It is not entirely a restaurant built on the torture of animals for the pleasure of people. Nevertheless, we find ourselves, two weeks from the end, serving foie gras. Doing so is becoming to Death and Dying. Like the cypress, we take it to be a symbol of death. Of finality. We shall serve foie gras for as long as it lasts in our pantry, starting tomorrow. How long it lasts will depend on how many self-serving hedonists we feed, how soon.

An authentic French woman has flown back with it from France and delivered it to our doorstep. She had to be lured with all sorts of treats and promises, of course. We receive the parcel tonight, under the cover of darkness, in a small pizza venue – address will remain undisclosed.

Foie gras, the French claim, is part of their protected cultural heritage. If a duck or goose is fattened somewhere else, say in Turkey, the product of that fattening is the intellectual property of France. So, the liver itself might be Turkish, but the fact that it has been fattened, in a way that is good for eating, belongs to the French. You, dear Patron, can work this out for yourself.

The aforementioned intellectual property oddity is not dissimilar to how the French think of a chateau, or chateaux (plural). A chateau can only exist in France. By this they mean that the same house, brick for brick, if on other soil, cannot be called a chateau. Chateaux, by definition, are buildings which stand on French soil. So, it is not a word which is up for translation, like mansion or villa or castle. It designates a building of a specific type which resides in France. Foie gras, whether on French soil or not, belongs to the French.

Fortunately, we at The Glenwood Restaurant are not intimated in the least by this guileful nationalism. We cook it with gay abandon and fearlessly – these are not the same thing. One can display gay abandon and mean it, whilst being riddled with fear. We are neither. We are about to leave this mortal coil, we have nothing to lose. 

Important notices: Adam and Carin Robinson would like to thank the staff of The Glenwood Restaurant for their impeccable work and commitment to the restaurant. You will make us cry still. We think Durban owes you a round of applause. We love you all. Thank you.

The photograph is of Bernadette on her last trip to France, just after having harvested some goose livers herself. Notice the gay abandon. You too could look like that.