Is the production of foie gras torturous under even the best of conditions?
To answer this question, me and a few fellow Serious Eaters set out on a brisk fall morning for La Belle Farms in the idyllic Hudson Valley in what was promised to us as a 100% full-access, bottom to top tour of the operation. We'd be free to see anything we liked, no doors would be locked, and we'd be taking cameras and notebooks with us.
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What about the act of feeding? Surely the duck feels discomfort when a tube is slid down its throat?
Tony Bourdain likes to remind us that we see worse things committed against human beings on late night pay-per-view. And he's right: humans have a gag reflex. But ducks? Not so.
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Humans chew their food in their mouth until it breaks down into pieces small enough to swallow. Ducks, on the other hand, have no teeth in their mouth, and they don't chew. Instead, they swallow their food whole, storing it in the bottom of the esophagus in a stretchy pouch known as the crop.
