Liver Land: An Exploration of Liver as Foie Gras in France

Authors

Donna Vatnick, Washington University in St. LouisFollow

Files

Abstract

The Newman Exploration Travel Fund granted me an opportunity to go to France
for two weeks to research the production and consumption of foie gras—one of
the most hotly contested conflicts in culinary ethics—for a chapter in a book I am
writing about the liver. More than any other organ, the liver functions as a totemic
food. The liver sits at the intersection of animal ethics, sustainability, sociopolitical
prestige, and nationalism. Think about the “liver and onions” of the American
working class, the chicken liver pâtés beloved by Jewish migrants, the alleged
healing properties of cod liver, the traditional Chinese prescription of chicken liver
for menstrual problems, and, of course, foie gras. To understand the cultural heft
of the liver, no country is more important than France, the motherland of fatty
liver.

2022 Newman Exploration Travel Fund (NEXT) Award, Graduate Student

Program

Newman Exploration Travel Fund (NEXT)

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

3-2023

Recommended Citation

Vatnick, Donna, "Liver Land: An Exploration of Liver as Foie Gras in France" (2023). Newman Exploration Travel Fund
(NEXT) Awards. 3.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/next_posters/3