Who We Are

Qui Nous Sommes

The idea to enter the world of small-scale Agriculture was formulated circa 2016 …

When I (Ross) was leaving a teaching position for a career in finance. I told the hiring manager that I’d start a farm in 3 years’ time, and that’s just about how it worked out despite some abnormal circumstances.

In 2019, I underwent a couple of surgeries - due to an autoimmune condition - that were extremely time-consuming in terms of recovery and terribly invasive. However, just before those surgeries, we had made initial attempts to produce foie gras (inspired by our good friends from Toulouse, Laurent and Maïlys) on our 3/4-acre lot in the suburbs. Surprisingly, we experienced tremendous success, producing some very fine foie gras from a French-improved bloodline of Muscovy drakes.

While I was in the hospital (just post-op), we made the decision to form an LLC and to call it “Backwater Foie Gras” as a reference to Walker Percy’s description of my hometown of Covington, LA and as a bit of a jibe at what we perceived to be a hoity-toity attitude toward this age-old product of intense human-animal cooperation, something very earthy, something indicating a deep understanding and a developed intuition in regard to home-scale animal husbandry.

Since 2019, when, together with my parents, we bought this now-multi-generational farm, we’ve experienced the ups and downs of small-scale animal husbandry: pride and elation when our systems are efficient and the forces of nature are working in our favor, shock and despondency when we lose livestock due to factors that seem to be out of our control, the joy of bringing something to the table of culture-building, the honor of passing on a high tradition, the unceasing struggle of commercial farming when it comes to something as simple as “making a living”.

And so here we are: foie gras farmers in Southeast Louisiana trying to do something beautiful, trying to follow the old ways, working out our salvation in fear and trembling.

Thank you for stopping by to learn more. You can follow our progress by signing up for our Newsletter at the bottom of this page.

God bless and lâche pas !

Cordialement,

Ross