Summer Waning

It certainly has been a difficult Summer at Backwater Farmstead.

The foie gras season takes a lot out of us mentally, physically, emotionally. There’s a sudden onset of tremendous activity in the Fall, and the daily obligations continue through the cool months and into Springtime, leaving little time for much more than work, work, work.

As the season winds up, we continue to sell inventory at the Covington Farmers Market and online, but restaurant deliveries cease as fresh duck goes out of stock until the Fall.

We have a reasonable need of rest and recuperation after our harried work to produce Louisiana’s own foie gras - and the only foie gras in the Southeastern U.S. - but that need is never really fulfilled, given the tremendous lack of substantial profitability in small-scale agriculture, so we continue on, tired, through the hot months, finding some way to make ends meet until the next season.

However, things haven’t really worked out for us this Summer in that regard, and we haven’t the capital to kick off another foie gras season with any real force. This has led to some reflection on our part as to whether the production cycle is a sustainable way for us to provide for our family.

Thus far, our discernment has led us to the conclusion that we should scale back and produce a lesser volume of foie gras in conjunction with seeking other work to fill in the gaps.

This isn’t our desire, of course, but there are significant barriers to continuing in our former track, such as market conditions and pricing expectations, as well as national food policy … “politics” being the primary influence that ruins any semblance of a free market in agriculture.

Thus, working hard and producing a desirable product don’t necessarily result in economic stability for local farmers.

That being said, we have no intention of throwing in the towel completely. However, we do intend to respond to this situation in the only way that seems to “make sense” (while being completely unreasonable from a historical perspective): casting the net wider by focussing on online sales to reach a target audience that already appreciates artisanal goods produced with traditional methods.

While we’d prefer to adhere to the ideal (i.e. selling locally that which is raised locally), the sad reality is that there is not a high enough concentration of customers who share that ideal where we reside. Few enough eaters eat from their local farmers, and, while there is plenty of foie gras cooked and served in New-Orleans-metro-area restaurants, most of it is shipped from New York.

If you’re a local regular, have no fear! You’ve made the “short list”, and our products will still be available to you, and we do intend to maintain our presence at the farmers’ market.

If you’re not local, your chances of obtaining such yummies as lobes of foie gras, country pâté, foie gras pâté, duck rillons - among other things - is about to increase.

Thanks, as always, to our loyal customers and friends, and we hope to hear from you soon!

Is the Movement Moving?

When we consider “movements”, such as the “Trad Wife Movement”, the “Local Food Movement”, etc., what exactly are we talking about? Most of the conversations about these topics happen through mediated forums rather than meaningful, real engagement within our communities, and so these movements often seem to be more like entertainment channels than effective, real-world forces.

I recently read a quote from Allan Ehrlick, president of the “Halton Region Federation of Agriculture” that went thusly: “Suddenly everyone wants to buy local food, but you can’t grow it in subdivisions.”

While it seems that, within context, he was referring to the federal onslaught against family-owned farmland and the need to preserve it, it struck me that the presumption that “everyone wants to buy local food” might be more accurately constructed as “everyone wants to talk about buying local food”.

I’ve been running a booth at my local farmers’ market for quite some time now, and I can assure the reader that far from “everyone” buys local. We live in an unprecedented era wherein entire regions cannot support themselves nutritionally because the populations of those regions A. do not farm and B. predominantly buy from other sources than their neighborhood farmers.

Let’s say that, for instance, “everyone” in my town decided to “buy local” this weekend. Every booth would be sold out within minutes, the passage of time only being relevant for the sake of receiving funds and handing over goods. The lines would be so long that the streets would be choked with bodies (which itself indicates the absurdity of the lacking infrastructure for local markets and the limitations placed upon them in regards to public commerce).

Despite the ever-increasing availability of information about local food resiliency, sustainable and “regenerative” agriculture, and the importance of eating consciously, local farmers’ markets do not seem to have benefited all that much. Expansion in “awareness” has not necessarily resulted in expansion of markets.

What hurts the most is when you know that your friends and acquaintances know that they ought to be stocking their larders from the provenance that you and other small-scale farmers work so hard to generate and yet fail to “show up”.

It’s an ongoing struggle.

My perception is that Americans fail, in general, to prioritize the #2 item in the hierarchy of human needs and, when they do prioritize it, they fulfill this need as conveniently as possible and not necessarily with the Common Good in mind, i.e. they’re headed to Whole Foods (or Costco, as the case may be) and looking for “Organic” and “Non-GMO” labeling instead of taking real responsibility.

Which is to say, their choices often push dollars out of local economies - out of the hands of their friends, neighbors, and valuable members of the community - and into large conglomerates domiciled elsewhere, whose CEOs may have other primary interests than the ultimate good of their customers.

It is very much the trend to have some working knowledge of the food system these days and to have the appearance of being a conscious consumer in regards to nourishing one’s family, but perhaps the trend would align more with objective moral principles if the consumer viewed himself or herself as a “participant” in community agriculture rather than a “consumer”. In other words “Who is my neighbor?”

Besides being the virtuous means of feeding one’s family, contributing dollars toward local agriculture means that farmers will be there for you when you need them. (I am reminded sharply of the lines at my booth during the beer-virus days (and the sudden drop-off in farmers’ market patronage when grocery store policies became less restrictive and nerve-wracking).) In other words, the complaints we voice about Walmart, chain stores in general, and large banks can be applied to our own lives much of the time when we make decisions that sap the local economy in favor of convenience, preference, and the general placement of our personal gain over that of our neighbors.

As an illustration, local food is not - as is so often claimed - “too expensive”. It reflects - inadequately, in my opinion from hard experience - the labor and overhead inputs of people who are farming at a reasonable scale (i.e. “the human scale”: a historically normal scale, a domestic scale), which requires real responsibility on the part of the farmer. Over-expansion and outsourcing to reduce costs have the eventual results we are all too familiar with. And who doesn’t want to support the incubation and growth of responsibility in one’s community - responsibility for one’s actions, accountability for consequences, real “participation” in the lives of one’s neighbors (which means real, significant human interaction that is impossible both online and at the box store).

Don’t be afraid of relationships, even complex ones - for example, being both a friend and a customer to your local farmer. This is how the heart expands its capacity for justice, charity, patience, and fortitude. Think of the possibilities for the soul to advance in wisdom when conflicts do arise!

I suppose I’ll close with this: don’t settle for the show. Don’t let yourself off easy, because, in the end, life isn’t easy and its hardships can serve to make us better people, better neighbors. At the end of the day, we’re not the center of the universe. We find ourselves only in relation to how we treat others. “Who is my neighbor?” A question that contains its own answer. Strangely enough, taking on the perceived hardship of sourcing as much as your nutrition as possible from local farmers results in your table becoming a center of both ineffable gastronomic delight and of real, authentic culture.

Avec amour,

Ross


This Tremendous Weight


A family picture at the grave of my 3x-great-grandfather, Jean Dominique Marie Emeric de Nux.

I considered entitling this short reflection “Love Letter to a Lost Homeland”, but I debate the accuracy of describing the region of my ancestors and of my childhood and adult years as entirely “lost” to Americanization. There certainly is a looming possibility of total loss of our culture, our history, our music, and, most importantly, the practice of our Religion in south Louisiana, but that there is no need for me to specify that “Religion” (but merely to capitalize the first letter of the word) is perhaps a sign of hope.

“This Tremendous Weight” came forth from the depths of my recollection through the various bullet points in my memory as more apt given the existence of a precipice, the proximity of an abyss into which we have not fallen - yet.

First, let us address the glaring problem of the language in which I write to you (yes, to you, my dear fellow Louisianais). Despite most certainly being a sign of homogenization - and therefore lack of independence - and a loose thread in the seams of the fraternal relationships that make us who we are and made us who we were, let’s not fret the use we can make of the enemy’s own weapon. American English, here, can serve the purpose of the multitudinous languages in which the Holy Apostles preached at Pentecost.

The journey we have to take together will lead us back, as did that same evangelization when the Holy Spirit descended in flame, into a more ancient tongue that is indeed also inseparable from the Church, spoken as it was by her eldest daughter and her eldest sons.

My premier ancêtre to immigrate to Avoyelles Parish, Emeric de Nux (Jean Dominique Emeric Marie de Nux), wrote a somber ode to Tradition with the title “Rome ou Malte”. Published in Paris in 1866 by Charles Douniol, it describes the destruction of history, culture, justice, and Religion caused by the thoughtless brutality of the forces of revolution, and, in so doing, perhaps provides insight regarding his reasons for leaving France. Did he still recognize his homeland as one of the greatest incubators of civilization in all of Europe, or was he haunted by the same forces that pursue the supplantment of our own way of life today, here in the New-Old World that is (was?) New France?

The personal history of the de Nux family? We maintain records of our family from the 1500s onward, and we had an intimate brush with the Revolution of 1789 when armed thugs forced the family from its ancestral home near Pau and the new government’s gestapo-like police hunted for Dominique de Nux, compelling him to live in hiding.

The well-known seizures by the revolutionary government of the property of nobles and the Church is perhaps more thoroughly documented than the effects of these seizures on the people of France. One notable (and notably under-noted) example of the rapaciousness of the revolutionary powers in France was the genocide of Catholics that occurred in the Vendée by order of Robespierre after the final defeat of the counterrevolutionary forces of the Armée Catholique et Royale: nuns and priests bound together and cast into rivers to drown (i.e. the infamous “Republican weddings”), infants speared on bayonets, girls raped and hung from trees.

Immigration from France to Acadie occurred prior to these events in France, but, significantly, there are shared surnames between the Cajun families and those in the Vendée. Owls hoot on both sides of the Atlantic: “a l’ombre de nos halliers”, as goes the old march of the Vendéens, “Le Chant de Fidélité”.

Often overlooked is the reality that the invasion and subjugation of Acadie by Britain was not merely political, but religious. Could Acadians swear loyalty to a Protestant king? Did Britain have any great love for Catholics?

To preserve their patrimony, the Cajuns wandered through the wilderness of North America like the Israelites through the wilderness of Sin.

What will we do to preserve our patrimony as we sit aimless in the wilderness of post-industrial modernity?

From the song “Dégénérations” by Mes Aïeux:

Ton arrière-arrière-grand-père a vécu la grosse misère

Ton arrière-grand-père, il ramassait les cennes noères

Et pis ton grand-père, miracle, y est devenu millionnaire

Ton père en a hérité, il l'a toute mis dans ses REER

Firstly, we must address the generational failure-to-transmit. We can blame the illegitimate sale of the Louisiana territory by an illegitimate, tyrannical usurper. We can blame the edict of 1926 banning French in the schools. We can talk of modernization and commerce. We can blame this and that, de choses et d’autres. However, the primary responsibility for the transmission of culture to our children lies with us, their parents.

With what tenacity did the Vendéens hold onto Religion and their fiery love and fidelity to their king? With what all-enduring perseverance did the Acadians carry their way of life upon their backs all the way down to the rivers and bayous?

Are we willing to carry any burden at all? It is easy to say “I’m from Louisiana”, “I’m Cajun”, “I’m Creole”, but only a little less easy to say “Je viens de Louisiane”, “Je suis Cadien”, “Je suis Créole”.

It is easy to say “I’m Catholic”, but only a little less easy to faithfully attend La Sainte Messe le dimanche and on Holy Days of Obligation, make a good Confession at least once a year, receive Holy Communion during Easter, observe the prescribed days of fasting and abstinence, contribute to the support of the pastors of the Church, and “Not to marry persons who are not Catholics, or who are related to us within the third degree of kindred, nor privately without witness, nor to solemnize marriage at forbidden times”.

Do we not know our history? Do we not understand what relief and grace the refugees from Acadie must have experienced, when, at the end of their journey, they were received with the indescribable blessing of a priest, Father Jean Louis Civrey, sent to them by the acting French governor, Jean Jacques Blaise d'Abbadie? Do we underestimate the significance of the first great act of permanent settlement in St. Martinville by the Acadians - the building of the historic St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church?

A people of the Faith. A people of fidelity: “Fidèles à la vrai flamme, Fidèles à leurs enfants”.



I have witnessed all my life the incredible capacity of our people - including myself - in this age to take all of this for granted. We send our children to Catholic schools that are no longer Catholic. We don’t teach the Faith at home, but merely go to Mass on Sundays and expect catechesis to occur via osmosis - or we go only on Christmas and Easter in an attempt to give veracity to “I’m Catholic” (not a Catholic thing to do) … and many go not at all.

We boil crawfish once or twice a year. Sometimes we insult our ancestors by partying with feasts of fresh seafood on Fridays - even in Lent. We take pride in producing a decent gumbo or Jambalaya or dirty rice. These are paltry things to cling to, tattered finery, the mere trappings of a once-great tradition - and even then, bastardized and conformed to the spirit of the age: pleasure, convenience, ease, ceaseless partying … poor memorials for a culture built with self-denial, difficulty, hardship, penance.

It’s a simple and hard truth: If we lose our Faith (as we are now quite effectively doing), we will lose our ability to identify with the ancestors whose very Faith brought them here and whose very Faith inspired them to have many children, and so here you are. Here we are.

“Dégénérations” again:

Ton arrière-arrière-grand-mère, elle a eu quatorze enfants

Ton arrière-grand-mère en a eu quasiment autant

Et pis ta grand-mère en a eu trois, c'tait suffisant

Pis ta mère en voulait pas, toé t'étais un accident



If we do not know that Christ is both God and King, then we do not know what it means to be Francophone. “Vive Dieu, Vive Le Roi !” the Poitevins cried as they were slaughtered by the Bleus.

It is no wonder, then, that we are intent on losing our language in favor of “la langue de les conquis”, as Jourdan Thibodeaux sings avec beaucoup de force in his cri-de-coeur, “La Prière”. And what is the language of the conquered? Not just American English, but Americanism (the current face of revolution): life through a smartphone, life at the supermarket, life through online shopping, life through a car note, life through a mortgage, life through careerism, life through moving every 5 years for un travail stupide and therefore life without close family ties, life through money, life through consumption, life through mainstream music, life through hedonism, life without God, life unlived!


What is the cost? What is the weight?

What is your promise to me and to my children?

And what is my promise to you and to your children, mes chers Louisianais?



Je me souviendrai d'eux, mes ancêtres, et en particulier, et premièrement, de la Foi qu'ils m'ont donnée, and I will give the Faith to my children.

I will also continue to do, as I have done, my part for the culture. I will continue to teach my children la langue des vainqueurs. I will continue to give to Louisiana as it was given to me by the French, du foie gras. De temps en temps, a derivative culture can use an infusion from her motherland, et donc voilà.

You question me. You say, “but Catholicism has become bland and worldly and the priest talks about football from the pulpit”.

This is because you are not attending Mass as our ancestors did. You go to an English-language Mass - written by the self-same, wrecking-ball revolutionary spirit that we fought in 1789 - that will eventually be abrogated due to its all-too-striking similarities with Cranmer’s “Mass”. Worship God with all dignity and reverence as our ancestors worshiped Him: assist at the Traditional Latin Mass that has existed from time immemorial and which unites all the world in universal worship of the One, True God as He Himself has ordained. Attend but once and watch (do not attempt to understand) and allow yourself to be transported into the shoes of Claude de La Colombière or Marguerite-Marie Alacoque as she prayed for Louis XIV or St. Teresa of Ávila or St. Louis IX, King of France, before he left on Crusade … and see if you do not see your ancestors there beside you. 


Will you be there, also, the ancestor beside your descendent, praying and asking God for the strength to bear this tremendous weight upon his shoulders?

More poignantly even: imagine you are Beausoleil Broussard overcome during that first mass at St. Martin of Tours in St. Martinville.

A word that the World hates: Crusade.

But we are on Crusade: “Défendons la tradition”. And on this Crusade we have a weapon: the language that bears our Faith and that bears our Culture. It has never been a better time to rehabilitate that fading, but most essential, part of our common patrimony. As Charles de Gaulle said, “How can you govern a country where there exist 258 varieties of cheese ?” I say, “How can you govern a country with thousands of varieties of jambalaya: your mother’s and everyone else’s?” Or rather: “Comment gouverner un pays où il existe mille variétés de jambalaya : celui de sa mère et celui des mères des autres ?”

I look forward to the day when you and I ensemble, mon louisianais bien-aimé, pouvons dire, dans la langue de notre pays, “Vive Dieu, Vive Le Roi, Vive La Culture, Vive La Religion, Vive La Louisiane !”

Lâche pas la patate (mais donnez-la à vos enfants !),

Ross

Our Lady of Prompt Succor, Hasten to Help Us!

Reflection on Beauty

I idealized this life.

It wasn’t a false beauty that I loved - this, I think, is of paramount importance to keep in mind. In fact, the ideal, is, in many ways, reality in potency. It’s not unobtainable per se (although we are not capable of reaching it without sanctifying grace).

It was a real beauty that I loved, an original beauty - one can say with great accuracy - reflecting the original vocation: “And the Lord God took man, and put him into the paradise of pleasure, to dress it, and to keep it” (Gen. 2.15).

Etched into my being now is the oft-quoted, impassioned declaration of the great Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Beauty will save the world”.

It is a profound truth! - and therefore beautiful. But beware: it is true also that salvation occurs precisely because of the sacrifice of beauty. The perfect Man who is God stretched Himself out upon the tree and watered it with His blood, a farmer from His first human breath to His last on the Cross.

In meditating upon the Mystery of the Nativity, is it possible for someone such as me not to weep as I stand amidst the mess of animals and He stares at me from the indescribable nearness of a manger? I tell you that it is possible - because I am hardhearted, and yet I want to weep.

For a farmer, “He is the New Adam” is not merely an abstract theological truth. It is a truth of tremendous and unshakeable and unfathomable nearness, and one that is so necessary as the Beauty of the idealized beloved becomes the Beauty that is the life of sacrifice.

It seems to me that I cannot explain why I must go on farming despite its devastating impracticality. In the perspective of the capitalist, one might even consider it a logical impossibility, an affront against rationality, to attempt to recall the old life of the family farm into the post-industrial, over-technologized wasteland of consumerism in which we find ourselves. (I suppose that this itself stands as the explanation.)

Je dois le faire. It is super-rational.

I have never witnessed so much loss in return for so much labor.

I have never felt such ingratitude from those whom I serve.

I have never had so little (and so much).

Yet -

It is my gift and it is my penance to do this thing that is the very thing humanity needs in order to acknowledge our insufficiencies: Sowing and not reaping and then reaping in great abundance, killing, culling, weeding, burning, losing, gaining, tending, caring … dressing, keeping, losing, failing, persevering in hope only by grace.

I am not here primarily to produce good foie gras (though I fully intend to). I am here to save my soul …

That first glimpse of Beauty - it is still here … here beneath my fingernails, in cuts and scrapes and a gash on the forehead, in a separated shoulder, in the ache of my knees and the wind in my face, in the flowers blooming in spite of (because of? along with?) my sweat-and-blood-drenched t-shirt.

It is here, but I did not always understand its pain. Beauty was the eternal principle. When I said “I shall farm” I saw Beauty only partially, as if through a mist. “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Cor. 13.12).

But I must be the sacrifice - an ever-dwindling of “I” in fact, if I will know Beauty fully, “even as I am fully known”.

Ecce Homo, Titian (1490 - 1576)

Veal Boudin and The War.


As I bite into this savory symphony of veal, pork back-fat, rice cooked in veal stock, herbs, milk, eggs, and wine - all stuffed in a hog casing - I am once again confirmed in the knowledge that God loves man.

Not in the superficial way of a lover who lavishes gifts on the beloved - because this gift was born of struggle and suffering and memory and story.

He asked me “to dress it, and to keep it” (Gen. 2.15) - that is, this land - but of course not by necessity.

It is perhaps a crowning moment of our journey back to tradition - both in the Faith and with the land. It’s a sort of birth in the midst of sorrow, like a cheerless Christmas that yet somehow still shines the light of Joy upon the comfortless.

The pigs were born on the last day of December 2021, harvested and butchered this Fall. The calf was the first calf born on our farm (in June 2022) of our family milk-cow, Patty, whom we purchased from some very good friends of ours. It is Patty’s milk that made it into this veal boudin blanc that I have just consumed, along with our duck eggs and our fresh herbs. The dried sage was provided by our live-in intern family.

It is beautiful. It is a symphony.

The sorrow? Perhaps our hardest year on the farm due to the uncontrollable loss of upwards of 300 ducks (due to feed contamination, we suspect), which follows upon the heels of our greatest, most productive, and most profitable year (in monetary terms, anyway).

And so perhaps the sorrow is not.

Because, after all, the vision of our lives that we knew ought to be … well, it happened (is happening).

I did not often sit last year as I sit now and reflect upon God’s love and mercy (and his justice upon my pride). I reflect also upon the pricelessness of it all. There is no price for which I feel I could sell this boudin blanc, because the cost is so high it is irrelevant to anyone but me - I have born the cost intimately, and so only I can understand in any full sense the beauty and the love in its existence. I have killed for it. I have died for it. I have labored ceaselessly for it.

Is it any less than a painting or a stained glass window in significance and pathos?

I have realized on some level through all of this that our farm is idealist in everything that it does, and it does succeed in this, to a degree. However, the obstacles to our success are high. I cannot with any effort convey the importance of our work to a market that is inextricably dependent upon mass production unless I put the very splinters of the plow-handle into your hands.

Many people from across the country have reached out to me in the past months asking about the production of foie gras and for guidance, which is to say “we are not there yet”. When I look at the farms that have made a name for themselves in natural farming or “regenerative agriculture” (spare me, please), I note that the farming itself is not always central (because it is not and will never be compatible with the food industry’s methods).

We cannot yet compete.

My foie gras is not just worth twice as much as the commodity version. It is worth 4x that value at the least (if I must deal in such terms).

There are some chefs and private consumers who willingly pay 2x the price for a superior, local product, but I’ve yet to meet someone willing to pay quadruple, and yet that is the price of context, of authenticity.

That is the - no, there is no price for my veal boudin blanc, and so, in a sense, there is no price for my foie gras: when the community is lost, when the ties are lost, when the story is lost - you will not understand, and I cannot force you to understand.

I cannot fight the battle of dollars and cents when it comes to generating a “product” for sale when I’m pitched against mechanization and tech and wage-workers and massive economies of scale.

But I can fight the long battle of tradition: of educating those who consent to be educated and those who consent to the suffering incurred by the splinters of the plow in order to learn again what the beauty of that participation in “the ongoing act of Divine Creation” really is.

If we are what we eat, after all, then we must learn how to stop consuming commodities so as to cease being commodities to be bought and sold.

So much to announce that BFG will be formulating a structured course to be offered on selected dates throughout the foie gras season. We hope you can join us in the battle to regain the lost traditions of our fathers that made sovereign households … and that made us human.

Pour Dieu et Le Roi,

Ross


Origin Story: Tradition

What is Tradition? A passing-on, a handing-down, a gift from our mothers and fathers, our patrimony, the way in which all of our ancestors are embodied by us, our inheritance, that thing that makes “a people” more than just merely “a population”.

Many of the best culinary traditions are born of something called “thrift”, something that is itself quite literally born in that it originates within the kitchen economy of the family. The greater the family, the more necessary the employment of “thrift”, thrift in the form of bacon, prosciutto, guanciale, salumi, bresaola, ham, capocollo, saucisson, fenalår, various cheeses, rillettes, confit, and - yes - even foie gras.

And yet, in our age of impoverishment of the imagination due to the convenience and commodification of all things, it is precisely these traditional foods that are considered to be the finest and most desirable things - foods that were, when properly contextualized, the work of thrift, the work of the peasant farming economy, the work of precisely those people whom Hollywood has painted as clueless bumpkins in frumpy brown clothing with dirt smudged on their faces.

The foods we idealize, that we place on a pedestal or consider with awe and wonder come from many generations of great vintners and cheesemakers and charcutiers of France, mozzarella masters of Italy, pig-farmers of Spain. “Generations”: family and the great responsibility of forming and caring for and feeding children good things, of handing down the traditions that are the agents of humanization, the very things that allow us to live a cultured life above the level of mere survival, the very things that keep us from being forced to constantly reinvent the wheel.

Ironically, the young couple with no plans for children that galavants around the world sampling the glories of Tradition - views of the Hagia Sophia, sips of the best Burgundy - are consumers of something they’ve rejected.

Ironically, the hobbyist who makes salumi in California with pork from Carolina has abandoned the very nature of the thing he is concocting. Is it “salumi” anyway?

Traditions have become fragmented and compartmentalized, fetishized rather than authentically experienced in their context of seasonality and the liturgical year, experienced in the very liturgy of existence: of marriage, self-sacrifice, births, deaths, sufferings, daily encounters with “the joys and sorrows of this passing life”. What is more liturgical - barring the Mass, of course - than the slaughter of the first lamb born on one’s own farm, the connection to which is one of both affection and necessity?

It is only by dying, by leaving behind the force of our will and pride in the importance of our own lives and wants and aspirations that we can be open to receiving the wisdom of Tradition. Only then can we realize that true achievement is in the passing-on, the handing-down of something done with real love for others, for our families and communities, something done with care and attention to the massive body of knowledge and intuition carried through history by our fathers and our mothers and, if we do our duty, carried by us forward and paid to our children as what is their due.

Ironic again is that truth that we must die to the desire to be sui generis, unique, original - that we must submit to Tradition and receive from it the wisdom of a thousand years - to leave some good mark upon the world for our progeny and not some bitter memory of selfishness and narcissism.

I guarantee that, once the artificial and short-lived, constantly transmogrified industrial “food” system of our nation starts to crumble, only the traditions that have been faithfully fostered from generation to generation will survive, because they are uniquely rooted in place, so deeply rooted in thrift, so deeply rooted in the kitchen economies of the families who live in a locale, and therefore so deeply rooted in marriage and in faith, in joys and in sufferings, and, as we remember most especially this Sunday, in Motherhood.

Our Statement on The NYC Foie Gras Sanctions

I don’t eat quinoa.

It’s never been kind to me. It may be lauded as delicious and nutritious, but those little wispy-tailed spheres have only ever given me grief: bloating, indigestion, gas, you name it.

I don’t know much about quinoa.


What I do know is that it’s a grain (yippee!), it’s served relatively unprocessed, and it kind of looks like couscous (which doesn’t give me violent diarrhea, and is a fun and enjoyable iteration of pasta).

What I also know is that quinoa consumption in the U.S. is a startling case of animal cruelty. In this case, the animals involved are human, so I can speak more intelligently about the issues at stake because I am also human, and have a certain understanding of the human intellect, human anatomy and biology, and the needs of humans in general.

To make a long story short, because of the high consumption of quinoa by 1st-worlder Vegans as a “cruelty-free meat substitute”, poor Peruvians and Bolivians can no longer afford their heretofore staple grain. According to an informative article published in The Guardian, “Imported junk food is cheaper. In Lima, quinoa now costs more than chicken.” In short, “It's beginning to look like a cautionary tale of how a focus on exporting premium foods can damage the producer country's food security.”

Joanna Blythman even throws in a helpful “Embarrassingly, for those who portray it as a progressive alternative to planet-destroying meat, soya [sic] production is now one of the two main causes of deforestation in South America”. See the full article here.

I don’t know much about quinoa. It seems like there are some areas of concern regarding its production, but I don’t know that I can speak definitively on whether it should be banned without manifesting my extreme bias.

But let us turn our attention to foie gras, which is made with the help and assistance of ducks right here in the USA.

In particular, let’s focus on foie gras farming in upstate New York. Now, I am no fowl (although at times I smell that way), but I spend a great deal of time with these birds, and I am fairly well-versed in their anatomy and physiology, their preferred diet, their capacities for dealing with certain foods, mineral deficiencies they are subject to, as well as their likes and dislikes.

For instance, ducks will often voluntarily consume sticks and rocks, spiky crustaceans, fish that seem too big for them to handle (whole), snails, small rodents, a variety of vegetable life, and even things you’d really want to prevent them from eating, such as plastic, metal … you get the picture. They’re like pig-dogs with feathers.

One would be hard-pressed to argue that a smooth plastic tube with a rounded end inserted gently (not “shoved” for profitability’s sake!) down the esophagus — stretchy, keratinous, and sans cartilaginous rings — of a Moulard duck. In fact, the Moulard has been developed quite specifically for foie gras farming, and so it’s uniquely suited to the practice.

Simply put, we’d have to argue that a wild duck has masochistic dietary habits if we wanted to press the matter.

Because, of course — and what the people for the “ethical” treatment of animals that will no longer exist if we acquiesce to their agenda won’t tell you — waterfowl also gorge themselves in the wild. That is, they make foie gras. It’s a migratory ability that all breeds farmed for foie gras also possess. Ducks store fat naturally in the liver (the “foie”). Humans don’t. It’s a major biological difference.

And this brings us to the crux of the matter. Is animal husbandry qua animal husbandry essentially cruel? And to judge animal husbandry with any equity, we must consider it at its best, because if it can be practiced in such a way that animals and the humans that care for them are both respected, then it is not essentially cruel.

But a duck must be respected as a duck. A human must be respected as a human.

One thing that is certain is that all animal husbandry involves biomimicry. The extent to which the animal can perform its natural behaviors and also be healthy and content in terms of its needs determines whether that biomimicry is exploitative or co-productive.

I’m not going to go into the philosophy of farming. Suffice it to say that I pursue farming practices that are co-productive. I am producing something special with the animal in all of its natural abilities and proclivities vs. exploiting the animal for mere profit.

Farming isn’t that profitable anyway. (Trust me. Don’t get into farming for the money.)

What I will say is that the kerfuffle in New York City is not about animal welfare. It’s about political posturing and “animal-rights activists” (is this a tongue-in-cheek phrase?) who truly wish to ban all meat consumption. Just read their mission statements. (Throwback to the quinoa craze: could those suffering farming families possibly be the same families who’ve fled to Sullivan County to farm foie gras? Perhaps at least they share some gripes with those people.) Do 1st-world bleeding hearts care about the real effects of their lobbying on man and beast as long as they can force a strange and very questionable agenda that opposes animal husbandry carte blanche?

Why else would a grand total of zero city-council members accept the invitations to visit the foie gras farms in question, but are completely content to destroy the fragile economy of one of NY’s poorest counties? Why else would these animal-rights activists target the minuscule world of foie gras farming rather than toxic, pollutant-ridden commercial swine batteries or the massive, bird-and-farmer-exploiting commercial chicken industry?

Let’s end where we began.

What do these council members know about foie gras farming? (What do they know about farming - period?)

What are the pre-conceptions that animal-rights activists are bringing with them to the table along with the bowl of cashews (another human rights issue, by the way)?

What do these people know (or care to know) about waterfowl biology?

What do they know about the South American immigrant families who work at these farms?

What do they know about the … wait for it … not French, but Israeli immigrants … who started NY’s largest foie gras farm?

What do they know about the economy of Sullivan County?

On the other hand, what do they know about election cycles, political polls, and which hot-button issues to exploit to press their personal interests or their pet agendas? Pun absolutely intended.

We’ll let you be the judge. Meanwhile, we’ll continue with our mission to carry on the important culture and ancient tradition of foie gras farming, respecting the land, respecting the animals, and respecting the people who have this vocation in life to steward the earth.

May God bless you, and may God bless Louisiana.

Avec amour,

Ross

Pas Végan

Veganism.

Veganism is profoundly nihilist.

It seeks to do the least amount of “harm” by reducing humanity to a ragged tribe of half-starved herbivores who, ironically, must still kill to eat (more on the quiet life of plants here).

Veganism and its offspring, the animal rights movement, manifest themselves in their most neurotic form in stories like this one, where, in short, a woman rambles on about her adopted “daughter”, a Cornish Cross chicken she rescued from a factory farm.

The irony in all of this is that there is no continuation of life without death. The great economy of the earth gives germination and birth through death and decay. The dying trees and fallen leaves and deceased stag all feed the next generation. If we all lived and only lived, food would most certainly be scarce.

Without animal consumption, there would be few animals to live comfortable, ecologically beneficial lives.

”Snow”, the rescue-chicken, would never have been hatched.

Death begets life, and the cycle continues.

So why broach the topic? I’ve had a few conversations - which I enjoy! - with good people genuinely interested in how foie gras is made and whether I use a funnel to - as the animal rights activists say - “force-feed” our ducks.

You see, the optics of Gavage (the practice of using a funnel during the finishing process for foie gras) are extremely important to the Vegan/animal-rights movement. The image of a funnel down a duck’s throat is easy to anthropomorphize as “painful” and “cruel”, and the animal rights movement has successfully convinced people of various political persuasions that the practice of Gavage should be banned.

In that vein, I would suggest they add finishing cattle with grain (or - God forbid - having them eat their own regurgitated forage) to their list of cruel practices that should be ceased forever.

People who fail to think critically often bend like a reed with the wind. If science supports mainstream beliefs, they praise the merits of science. If science contradicts those beliefs, they ignore it.

It would be a very strange idea to suggest to an animal-rights activist that the duck does not think he is suffering when being fed during Gavage, because a duck is not a human being, and does not have cartilaginous rings maintaining a rigid esophageal structure, but rather enjoys a flexible, keratinous hose-like esophagus capable of transporting the strange menagerie of objects a duck will ingest (rocks, crustaceans, and the odd lost toy not being the least bizarre of which).

That does not mean that animal agriculture of the sort we practice (i.e. a rotational, pasture-based, free-roaming system that allows the duck to be a duck to the full extent of duck-ness) is not at times uncomfortable for our flocks of feathered fowl (though far more comfortable than the industrial battery farms). In all forms of animal agriculture, we are asking the beast to do something he wouldn’t necessarily have the precise inclination to do in the wild. We are honing in on some particular aspects of the animals’ biological capacities.

However, the ducks exist and live the best life we can give them precisely because we have designed for them a purpose that required their breeding and hatching. The Backwater duck is a duck and experiences duck-ness because Backwater Foie Gras came to be and continues to be.

And, if you are of the sort that believes life is good, then you will be happy for our beautiful birds.

If you are a nihilist, I cannot help you. If you are a Vegan, I urge you not to dissociate yourself from your slaughter of plant life.

Food and Responsibility

At one of the farmers’ markets we worked last week, I was on the receiving end of a couple of questions and comments that came from a place of irritability, misunderstanding, and perhaps frustration. I’ll briefly recount them here:

  1. “Do you have any pâté today?”

    “No, sir. We are sold out. It goes fast, but try us in a couple of weeks!”

    “Last time, you didn’t have it. If you don’t have it now, why would you have it then?”

  2. “Is there a real farmers’ market somewhere with actual farmers or is this supposed to be it?”

    “Ma’am, this is a real farmers’ market, and everyone here is an actual farmer.”


Certainly, when we shop often at the supermarkets, we tend to bookmark in our minds particular stores that have particular items we want at a particular location within that store, and we expect to be able to find what we’re after 99% of the time.

The supermarket is truly a modern marvel, but, by design, it does not contain fresh goods that are truly local - that is, goods that come from the farms and businesses that exist in the more-or-less immediate vicinity of a supermarket.

Why? Because the supermarket operates with complete dependency on the convenience that it can provide its shoppers, and the more convenience, the more sales.

The supermarket model, by necessity, competes with historically normal food suppliers.

There’s not even one chance in a million that the person who raises cows at a commodity dairy farm is even remotely involved with the various cheese products under various brand names that contain his milk. He’s abdicated responsibility to the end consumer (and transparency along with it).

The convenience of the supermarket - the marvelous, multi-colored aisles full of every kind of edible (if we can indeed use the word) - is dependent upon an extremely expansive catalogue of factories - not local kitchens, not local butcher shops - that do one thing and one thing only, like an infomercial brownie pan. These factories buy a few commodities as cheaply as possible (necessitating a commodity market, of course) and stamp out one ore two items that are somewhat digestible and market the living hell out of them until the stockholders are happy.

And so the commodification of nutrition, at the end of the day, does not serve the needs of the consumer. It’s not even designed with nutrition in mind.

On the other hand, what are some of the motivations for starting a small farm that only serves one or two local communities?

  1. Not extreme wealth (We still know we deserve a BMW. We’re just not expecting it.)

  2. Satisfaction in one’s labor.

  3. Changing the food system from the grassroots.

  4. Care for Creation/nature/the environment.

  5. And certainly not least of all, care for the health and well-being of one’s neighbors.

Food, especially animal protein, is slow by nature (hence the “Slow Food Movement”). Unlike the industrial food system, small artisanal farms aren’t interested in artificially accelerating the production process. We just want to do it well.

We only want to do it if we can do it well.

It takes 4 weeks to make duck prosciutto, but it takes 15 weeks to make a duck that will give us the best duck prosciutto possible.

Enfin, we love our customers and we love that they love our artisanal goods! That love and appreciation is a significant reason for our work. If we don’t have pâté one day, I promise it’s not because we’ve been lazy. Most likely, we had to put on one of our many hats and prioritize a certain task based on the ever-attendant, always-numerous variables of raising ducks from one-day-old to 15-weeks-old to 8-week-dry-aged saucisson sec!

We will never abdicate our responsibility to generate ethical, wholesome food in favor of a quick profit. We’d rather a peeved customer than an unhealthy one!

But ask, and you shall receive! We’re really good about special orders and providing timelines. We’ll see you at the next farmers’ market!

Avec beaucoup d’amour,

Ross

Re-Inventing “Local” in a Pandemic

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I’m not going to go into detail about what I think COVID-19 really is or isn’t. Suffice it to say that the virus, or the government’s response to the virus, has created unique challenges for all of us. This post is about those who’ve stepped up to the plate.

The day that COVID-19 became big news, we were negotiating the final details of an agreement with a restaurant distributor. That nascent agreement evaporated as restaurants began shutting down or modifying their menus for curbside service.

Many local farms get the majority of their business from restaurants. The significance of this is that when people patronize local farms, it’s often at the restaurants and not during grocery runs. See this NYT article.

We farmers have much to thank our chefs for. The chefs in the New Orleans metropolitan area and the Northshore area believe strongly in using the best produce that is available locally.

What this relationship between local farms and local restaurants means, though, is that orders that were placed months in advance suddenly could not be received, and we small-scale farmers had to (have to even now) scramble to retail massive inventory that was already spoken for until CV hit hard.

The challenge is that the American consumer - myself included - mostly favors convenience over ethics. We’ll sacrifice our ideals at the grocery store or the big box store more often than anywhere else. We’re all to blame for making life difficult on small businesses. I do not exempt myself or my family from responsibility.

Here’s where things get interesting, though. I reached out to the Main family in Folsom and Adam Acquistapace in Covington, explained our situation, and asked if they’d be willing to stock some local meat from local farms. Not only did both grocers place significant orders, but expressed great solidarity with us.

Adam blows me away. His attitude about pulling through these challenges together is what makes the term “local” in regards to our little Covington community so meaningful. Adam assured us he would do everything he could for our business and insisted that we’re all on the same team: grocers, farmers, and restaurants. You may have seen the news about the hot plates he stocks in his stores from local restaurants.

Along with Acquistapace’s (both Covington and Mandeville locations) and Main’s Market, Calandros in Baton Rouge also ordered a fair number of our ducks. We were so busy last week that there were a few days when we worked from dawn until midnight on these orders.

I cannot begin to express my gratitude for the reminder that we are a common human family, and that supporting our local community should always come first.

There are still difficulties ahead, but we are adapting. Duck egg production is in our future, along with offering various cuts from our ducks in addition to the whole bird. You’ll also be seeing us at the Covington Farmers Market in the near future!

If there’s one thing I can ask of you, it’s to buy from your local farmers. … And this asking is really a giving, because the ingenuity, innovation, and integrity of our local farmers is unparalleled. If you want to protect your family from Coronavirus, feed them the best and safest nutrition you can find. Here’s a start:

Fat Duck, Lean Duck

In France, there is a very important distinction between ducks raised with the sole intention of being sold for meat and ducks raised for the production of foie gras. The former are known as “lean ducks”, the latter as “fat ducks” (quite fittingly, if you ask me).

Along with this distinction comes a special set of recipes reserved only for the “fat duck” or the foie gras duck. For instance, magret is specifically the breast of the foie gras duck. You can certainly eat the breast of the lean duck, but if you were dining with a Frenchman, he would certainly correct you if you called it magret (even though magret translates simply as “breast”).

So what is it about magret? We can sear it like a steak (relatively easy … and delicious!). We can make a confit. Or, we can cure it in salt with herbs for a few weeks and enjoy the delicacy known as magret séché. But remember! If we don’t use the breast of the fat duck, then no matter the recipe, it’s not magret, but simply … breast.

Magret is noticeably thicker, juicier, and more tender than the typical duck breast, and carries a good layer of fat beneath the skin. Overall, the foie gras duck or “fat duck” will provide a richer, fattier carcass than the ordinary “lean duck”. After all, the foie gras ducks enjoy a vacation and a hearty diet during their last couple of weeks on the farm.

So why is this important? If you want to enjoy duck, you can go to any number of dining establishments and order a variety of preparations, but the foie gras duck is not so readily available. Blessed indeed is the diner - or, as I like to say, “co-producer” - who lives in the vicinity of a foie gras farm that makes these lovely birds available to the public. I have no bias here.

The key take-away being that, to be sure that you are eating the true crème de la crème, check your menu for the source of the duck, or ask the waiter where they get it, or skip the bureaucracy and order one for yourself. Christmas is coming. The duck is getting fat!

Avec amour,

Ross



*All products available to customers in Louisiana only.

The foie gras duck or “fat duck”.

The foie gras duck or “fat duck”.

Seared magret over greens with balsamic glaze.

Seared magret over greens with balsamic glaze.

Into an old life

With all of the insanity and the flurry of activity this Summer, we've had to stop ourselves and take the chance to just walk around these gorgeous acres that we have finally chosen, and that has been everything. For us, farming is a business, but it is more importantly a sacred calling. It's a great sacrifice. It's an extraordinary lifestyle, not unlike that of the Benedictines just south of us.

Stability. Stability is a Benedictine Hallmark. It’s also a blessing. It’s also a curse. We will always be here, the McKnights in Bush, because our work binds us to the land, and our relationship with the land is so much more than a signature on a legal document.

Instead of extended family vacations, going out to eat, or hanging out deep into the wee hours with friends (not that we won't get the odd night off), we will be here, sculpting our art from the earth, determined to make the best foie gras America has ever tasted.

I find serenity in this. There’s freedom in this, freedom that is not the libertinism of drifting from job to job, location to location, relationship to relationship, fascination to fascination, consumption to consumption. Freedom is a tying-down and a surrender (a surrender only of what Walker Percy called “the despair of infinite possibility”).

Possibility is plague. Particularity is purpose. Here, in Bush, Louisiana, we will accomplish what we’ve set out to accomplish. Here, with Louisiana corn grown in Louisiana, with ducks raised from a day-old on our land, with a system in place to enhance the fertility of this place. Here - to have built something. Here - to leave a legacy of culture and beauty and light in our community.

And it is necessary to commit to a place in order to grow. There is a great narrowness in the globalization of intercourse - wherein we choose those with whom we will associate. However, a man or woman who is made to endure his neighbors is refined in that crucible, is compelled to become a better man, a better woman - more empathetic, patient, kind, generous, loving. Perhaps a better artisan as well.

Farming is the most ancient of vocations, and so it should be that the integrity of any farm is reflected in the integrity of the community it supports. That integrity has been lost for too long in this country. And that is why we ask that you become a part of our community, that you hold us accountable, that you see us, and that we see you, that you eat with us, and that we truly, truly feed you, heart and soul.

But most of all, more vitally than being local, be here, and whatever it is that you do, do it so very well.

Avec amour,

Ross

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What is Foie Gras?

Let’s take a deep breath here.

Whew.

Alright. Foie gras. Here we go.

Many people think of foie gras as a rich food to be enjoyed by the wealthy at fine restaurants. Others imagine that the decision to eat foie gras at all is a poor one, morally speaking. Still others don’t even know what the heck it is: “F-f-f-faux what?!”

All of this - to a great extent - is understandable.

Foie gras. I mean, it’s French. It’s foreign. It’s unfamiliar. It’s one of those things that well-to-do but out-of-touch Americans might - dishonestly - rave about upon their return from lavish vacations a la “Par-ee” in “Frawnce”. Still worse, it involves what animal rights activists would - somewhat inaccurately - call “force-feeding”, a term that makes us all think, “Gee, I wouldn’t like to be force-fed”, and thus we anthropomorphize the duck.

The duck! Ah, the graceful, filter-feeding waterfowl of great physiological capabilities! The flying, swimming, diving predator that can fit a fish larger than its own head down its flexible, keratinous gullet!

That’s correct - ducks don’t have the restrictions that we do when it comes to feeding. In fact, just prior to the winter migration, they gorge. They devour like gluttons whatever Mother Nature has to offer, and, perchance, if a hunter were to take one of these beautiful beasties just as it was lifting off to head south … and, perchance, if he were to open the body cavity of that duck when cleaning it, he would behold a rich, golden, fatty foie (i.e. “liver”).

Egyptian workers hand-feeding grain pellets to geese. (Image in the Public Domain)

Egyptian workers hand-feeding grain pellets to geese. (Image in the Public Domain)

Which brings us to an interesting point. Egypt, as we know, has a fairly warm climate. But the situation is such that the earliest recorded history of foie gras production is in the form of Egyptian hieroglyphs. Not only this, but we have evidence that it wasn’t the Egyptian aristocracy that initially demanded foie on its plates, but rather Egyptian slaves. You read well. Slaves. Foie gras started as a poor man’s food. What humble origins for the beautiful, creamy, delicious meat-butter. But then again, there’s the po’-boy.

So how do we eat it? Hot, seared on both sides. Cold, as a terrine (cooked at a low heat, refrigerated, and then sliced). Cured, as a torchon (elongated roll of cured foie gras). Canned, as a päté or mousse. Eat it how you like it. Place a thin slice on your favorite steak. Stuff some pieces in a hamburger patty. Have it with poutine. Make a foie gras milkshake! Once you try it, you’ll note its versatility of application.

Moreover, and finally, foie gras can be raised well (or poorly), just as chicken, pigs, and cattle can be raised well (or poorly). We are in the business of respecting our livestock: firstly, because we know it’s the right thing to do, secondly, because a stress-free duck is a tastier duck (thus one that a customer enjoys and buys more of), and thirdly, because we humans are happier when we act in accord with our principles! Therefore, we raise our ducks on pasture with access to fresh grass, fermented whole grains, formulated dry feed, and clean water to drink. When we take them into the barn for the hand-feeding, we inspect each duck individually and ensure that we give them no more than they could comfortably digest in the wild.

We know that a beautiful product comes from a beautiful process. Hopefully, you will enjoy it as much as we do. Come see us at the farm anytime.

Ste. Jeanne d’Arc, prie pour nous.

- Ross

*To read more about how we raise our ducks, visit our “What is Foie Gras” page and read about “The Farm.”