For better or worse, you never forget the first time you eat gésiers, the gizzards of ducks, geese and sometimes chicken, traditionally served in salads in southwest France.
My debut was on a Dordogne restaurant terrace on a hot summer’s day more than two decades ago. I knew that all things duck were fair game in the ‘nose to tail eating’ culinary tradition of the Périgord, but I’d never even heard of gésiers, let alone ordered them.
In this case, the pieces of confited (slow cooked in duck fat), then pan-fried stomach muscle arrived atop a heaving mound of mesclun and frisée salad leaves liberally adorned with foie gras, slithers of dried magret (duck breast) and potatoes cooked in garlic – a classic salade Périgourdine.
The walnut oil dressing lent the dish a welcome twist with a nod to local noix production and I took an instant liking to the rich, intensely ‘ducky’ discs of meat. To this day, whenever I am in Dordogne I make a point of trying the local salade Périgourdine.
Other people, who cannot get past the very concept of eating the part of a duck’s intestinal muscle used for grinding up food, prefer to file gésiers under ‘never again’. I once witnessed a gizzard first-timer craftily hide their pieces of meat under a few remaining salad leaves, such was their displeasure at eating the offal.
In truth, gésiers are nowhere near as off-putting for unaccustomed, non-French diners as other ‘delicacies’ such as andouillettes (pig intestine sausages), tripes à la mode de Caen (tripes in cider) or cervelle de veau (calf’s brain).
Périgourdine is a variant of the lighter salade Landaise, another ‘Gascon’ salad which may include Bayonne ham, asparagus, tomatoes, pine nuts and chervil. It can feature other ingredients according to the whims of the chef and seasonal availability of ingredients – green beans, garlic bread croutons and walnuts are common.
Its reach extends far beyond the southwest, however, as it has become a brasserie staple in most parts of France – you cannot really go wrong if you order it, as it is so uncomplicated.
Dishes like this come under the banner ‘salade composée’ – a broad term meaning ‘composed salad’ with endless options. Anything as simple as tuna, boiled egg and grated carrot would be classed as a salade composée, for example.
Gadget inspector
Knives out: stay sharp with an electric sharpener
Sharpen in styleFischer
If you do a lot of food preparation, you need good knives, and there is no shortage of excellent French knife manufacturers to choose from. But once your favourite cutting utensil gets blunt, why not turn ‘semi-pro’ with this Made in France electric sharpener from Fischer, knife makers since 1859. Price €99.90 from Goyon-Chazeau.
Now available
Give as you take: tasty snacks with social benefits
Charitable snacksRamdam Social
Ramdam Social is a snack company on a mission: it works with charities so that every product purchased directly funds meals and hygiene products for those in need. Their newly launched goat’s cheese and rosemary crisps (€2.65) and organic pecorino and pepper shortbreads (€2.99) are available in Casino and Monoprix.
