Eduardo Sousa cannot cope with the worldwide demand this Christmas holiday season for his "ethical" foie gras, produced without force-feeding the geese -- a success he puts down to a French outcry over his methods.

  When he won an award at a Paris food salon last year, French producers protested, arguing that "foie gras" must come from the traditional "gavage" or force-feeding method. The publicity that generated led to massive orders this year. 
   "From England, the demand we have is quite astonishing, from restaurants, from anyone who wants something natural," he said at his sprawling farm in the rolling hills of western Spain's Extremadura region north of Seville.

   He also has orders from the United States and Japan, and has even had interest from France.

   "People the world over are now looking for quality."

   He said the family farm has been producing foie gras -- French for fatty liver -- since 1812 by a "natural" method.

   In France, which produces around three-quarters of the world's foie gras, ducks and geese are fed grain through a pipe forced down their throats while they are restrained.

   This swells the liver to several times its normal size and produces the rich velvety taste of the delicacy that is a staple of Christmas and New Year menus in France and elsewhere.

   Animal rights groups have condemned the practice as cruel, and it is banned by law in several European countries.

   But Sousa's geese roam freely around his 22-hectare (54-acre) farm where they feed mostly on acorns and grass, but also figs, lupins and olives at different times of the year.

 1 2 3 Next >