Duck foie gras or goose foie gras, which should I choose?

Aesthetically speaking duck foie gras seems more appetising with its beautiful beige-orange colour. Uncooked, goose foie gras has a pretty pink colour but the colour becomes a little duller once cooked, with lightly grey tones. 

As for cooking, goose foie gras has the advantage as it reduces less in size when you cook it.

In order to bear the name foie gras, the minimum weight of a duck foie gras is 300g, whereas the minimum weight of a goose foie gras is 400g. Nevertheless, on markets in the South-West, you may most often buy foies gras whose weight is somewhere between 450g and 650g for a duck foie gras and somewhere between 600g and 700g for a goose foie gras. 

So the goose’s liver is bigger than the duck’s liver, but also is special in that it almost doesn’t melt when you cook it, unlike duck foie gras which will greatly reduce in size. It’s also for that reason that goose foie gras remains a great product. 

Duck foie gras or goose foie gras: a matter of taste

Certain people don’t hesitate to say that goose foie gras is better, or vice-versa. In all fairness, it’s a question of taste, of habit and of “palace upbringing”.  

Goose foie gras has a more subtle flavour, less distinct and has a tendency to be expressed in its after taste. If you mainly eat duck foie gras, goose foie will perhaps seem bland. If on the other hand, if you are used to eating the latter, you will take pleasure in being reunited with this delicate flavour. 

In conclusion, pink coloured, goose foie gras is a foie gras which has a delicate and refined taste and a subtle flavour. Its texture is smooth and smelting. Beige-orange coloured, duck foie gras gives a more distinct taste and a more pronounced flavour than goose foie gras. It also has a more rustic touch.  

While there are many differences between ducks and geese, there are also many similarities. Like swans and many other waterfowl, the wild ducks and geese from which the many domesticated breeds came belong to the Anatidae family of birds. 

These animals, unlike chickens, enjoy aquatic environments from rivers and lakes to ponds on commons where the contents of their diet tends to include predominantly plants and insects. 

Many of their body characteristics, such as their legs, thighs, feet, feathers, nostrils and long necks are similar although there are some significant differences, their flat bills being such a thing. Male birds are generally larger than the females of the species and while ducks lay smaller eggs, they lay in greater number compared with female geese.