Foie gras in Strasbourg: what it is, what to order and what to avoid

Overview

Foie gras is the liver of a goose or duck fattened by force-feeding, and in Strasbourg it is eaten cold, as a pale pink slice cut from a terrine, firm at the edges and close to butter at the center. The city’s claim to it is old and specific: Alsace is one of France’s two historic foie gras regions, and the one where the goose rather than the duck has remained the emblem. The other, the South-West, is the bigger producer by far, and most foie gras eaten anywhere in France today, including here, is duck.

The famous story is the pâté de Contades. Around the 1780s, it goes, Jean-Pierre Clause, cook to the Marquis de Contades, military governor of Alsace, enclosed whole goose livers in pastry, the dish was sent to Louis XVI, and Clause went on to sell it from a shop in the city. The cook and the governor were real; the neat moment of invention is not well supported. Goose livers were already prized in Alsace, and the region’s Jewish community, which used goose fat where others used pork fat, had long raised and fattened geese. Treat Clause as the man who made the dish famous, not the man who invented it.

There is no protected designation for Alsace foie gras, so the city’s claim is historical rather than legal. What is legal, and far more useful at a counter, is French labelling law: since a 1993 decree, the words on the tin or terrine tell you exactly how much of it is liver and in what form. French law also declares foie gras part of the country’s protected gastronomic heritage, which is why the debate about force-feeding, real and unresolved, has changed little about how it is sold here.

What to order

On a restaurant menu it is almost always a starter, and the words that matter are these:

• foie gras d’oie — goose. Subtler, less gamey, with a finer texture and a paler color; this is the Alsatian tradition and it costs noticeably more.
• foie gras de canard — duck. Stronger, slightly more rustic, and the default. Not a lesser choice, just a different one.
• mi-cuit — gently cooked and kept chilled. This is the texture most people mean when they say foie gras: soft, rosy, short-lived.
• en terrine — pressed and cooked in a dish, then sliced. In a winstub it usually arrives as one or two thick slices with toast.
• poêlé — a fresh slice seared hot in a pan, crisp outside, almost liquid inside. A different dish from the cold terrine, and less specific to Alsace.
• pâté en croûte — baked in pastry, the shape the Contades story describes. Less common on menus than the plain terrine, and a good reason to order it when you see it.

It usually comes with toast or brioche, often with a Gewurztraminer jelly, flaky salt and a turn of pepper. Eat it on the toast in small pieces rather than spreading it like butter. The classic glass is a sweet or off-dry white — a late-harvest Gewurztraminer or Pinot Gris, marked vendanges tardives — though a dry Pinot Gris is the less cloying choice if more food follows.

What to avoid

The trap here is not a bad kitchen, it is a word one step down the label. Only foie gras entier is whole lobes of liver. Plain foie gras is pieces pressed together, which is fine. Bloc de foie gras is liver emulsified with water and reconstituted into a smooth, even slab, and it is what a cheap set menu may serve without saying so: a slice with no veins, no variation in color and the texture of a pâté is a bloc. Below that, parfait, mousse and médaillon de foie gras need only part of their weight in foie gras, and pâté de foie with no “gras” is ordinary pork liver pâté.

The souvenir shops around the cathedral sell tins and jars decorated with storks and half-timbering. Turn them over. The category word is always on the label. The origin of the liver is not required on prepared foie gras, so look for it, and treat its absence as an answer: some of the foie gras sold in France, around one liver in ten by the trade body’s estimate, comes from Hungary or Bulgaria, and a decorative Alsatian tin does not mean an Alsatian bird. If the label names only the city where it was packed, that is the tell.

Truffé on a label is legal with a small proportion of truffle, so a high price justified by that word alone is buying very little. And a “foie gras” topping on a tarte flambée or a burger is usually a bloc or a mousse doing duty as a name.

Practicalities

As a restaurant starter, goose costs noticeably more than duck. To take away, a delicatessen — a charcuterie or a traiteur — sells it by weight; goose again costs well above duck. A goose price far below a duck one is the signal to read the label again: it usually means a bloc, or a blend.

It is eaten all year in restaurants, but it is above all a December food. In the weeks of the Christmas markets and up to New Year, delicatessen counters stack it high and goose, made in far smaller quantities, is worth ordering a few days ahead if you want it. The rest of the year it is easy to find and easier to choose from.

For traveling, the form matters more than the brand. Mi-cuit must stay cold and keeps days to a few weeks; cuit or en conserve — sterilized in a tin or jar — keeps at room temperature for years and is the version to carry home. Within the EU that is straightforward. Further afield, meat products often meet import rules, and a sterilized tin is the form most likely to be allowed, never the fresh terrine.

Before serving, take a terrine out of the fridge a little ahead of time: straight from cold it tastes of almost nothing, and cutting with a knife dipped in hot water keeps the slices clean.