Foie gras

The technique of producing foie gras may actually go as far back as the ancient Egyptians. Researchers have discovered painting on tombs dating as far back from the fourth and fifth Egyptian dynasties, showing farmers holding geese by the neck and feeding them packed balls of grain, to increase their weight quickly. This method, called gavage, has basically gone unchanged, and its principles are still used today. It has been theorized that a farmer in Egypt had a flock of geese, and for some reason, one bird aquired an enormous appetite. When that goose was finally killed by the farmer for consumption, the farmer discovered that this goose had an enormous liver that he found to be quite delicious. (Gascony 5)
Foie gras also was utilized by the ancient Romans. Evidence can be found in their poems and literature, which featured the fattened livers of geese. A Roman that has been said to have advanced the technique to produce foie gras was Consul Quintus Caecilius Metullus Piu...