A FAT AFFAIR

Life lessons from the richest—and Frenchest—holiday tradition on earth

- STEVE HOFFMAN

DECEMBER 17

AS THE END OF THE YEAR APPROACHED IN AUTIGNAC, in the south of France, posters and signs appeared, advertising something called a foire au gras. The technical translation was "fat fair," but of course that couldn't be its true meaning. It wasn't like people went to holiday fairs to buy fat.

I asked my friend and next-door neighbor Jean-Luc about it one day, and he said that foires au gras were fairs where people went to buy fat.

To be specific, they went to buy duck and goose fat, sometimes rendered and packaged, but more often still subcutaneously a part of the original animal.

Jean-Luc finished his description of homemade foie gras for Christmas dinner and of duck legs, wings, and gizzards encased in an airtight sleeve of solid fat through the winter, ready at any time to be pulled free and crisped in the oven, like the most implausible form of fast food, and how one could use the leftover fat to sauté potatoes to a light crustiness that could not really be achieved by any other means.

He looked at me flatly. I can't be sure I wasn't making whimpering noises.

"You should come with us this year," he said.

THE FOIRE AU GRAS was hosted by the village of Sauvian, within sniffing distance, if not sight, of the Mediterranean.

Jean-Luc's wife, Nicole, offered a half-friendly bonjour to her chosen farmer, already looking over his lineup, not yet ready to commit to the holiday spirit.

There were maybe 30 ducks in his display, plucked, with nubby yellow skin lightly bloodstained in places, their abdomens opened, feet removed, and necks hanging off the edge of the table. These weren't exquisite little wild ducks the size of small chickens. Foie gras is made from a breed called a mulard, a hybrid of Muscovy duck and a domesticated subspecies of mallard. Mulards have been bred to be freaks. The ducks on display looked like swans.