food for thought | pâté

To recommence my regular blog segments, I thought I'd start with the horribly neglected food for thought.  This week I wanted to talk about pâté, but first a little back story:

Russians, like so many other ancient cultures, believe in consuming as much of an animal that's been slaughtered for food, as possible.  For this reason, eating liver was never a big deal at my place growing up - I just knew better than to tell any of my squeamish Australian friends about it!  Americans are similar in this regard, one mention of eating liver will send them running for the hills, but since I've seen first-hand how liver is washed and treated: I've never been afraid of it.  In fact, it's often been said in my family that a medium-rare piece of steak has more bacteria than a (correctly prepared) liver dish.

Pâté (pat-ay) is a meat spread that's made almost entirely of liver (either chicken, duck or pork) and it's very popular all over Europe and Russia.  Perhaps it's the Russian in me - or perhaps it's simply because I've tasted it before (pardon me when I say that no one who tries it dislikes it) - but I love pâté!

It wasn't something I never noticed on the menus in Atlanta but here in Austin, almost every trendy restaurant I've been to around town features pâté on its menu.  This surprised me because, as I mentioned, Americans don't typically eat liver... perhaps ignorance is bliss!  Case and point: Will loved pâté when he first tried it and I know that if the main ingredient had never been mentioned; he'd still be eating it to this day!  There are few things better than a slice of rye bread with brie and a smear of pâté on top. Yum yum!