Our Paté Taste Testing DayWe pride ourselves on the quality of foods that we have to offer, we source lots of high quality foods from around the UK and Ireland. Occasionally there are certain items that we get directly from the country of origin. One such items is the Ducs De Gascogne paté we stock in a variety of different flavours.Paté was something that our customers had often  asked for, but we hadn't been able to source high quality paté at a competitive price in our first few years. This changed back in 2010 when we sourced it directly from France.As far as we are aware we are the only Hamper and Gift Basket Company to use Ducs De Gascogne.Gabriel Dubarry founded the Ducs De Gascogne Cooperative at Gimont in Le Gers, land of the Foie Gras in 1953. In 1978 the first Duc De Gascogne shop was opened and the company started exporting in 1987 from France.? In 1999, the Ducs De Gascogne brand was recognised by an independent study as the 3rd most recognisable brand by French consumers. However, it is largely unknown within the UK and Ireland.? Their current Managing Director is Laurence Dubarry, grand-daughter of the original founder.We stock several flavours including 2 organic patés, which are written as Biologique on the packaging.  A traditional favourite is duck paté. We stock a duck recipe in one of our mini selection packs. These packs comprise of 60g of 4 different flavour patés. The 6  flavours we currently stock are: Goose, Duck, Guinea Fowl, Stag, Boar and Rabbit. We also had a traditional country pork paté which is currently sold out, but will come in again over the summer.

20140402_121320

Ducs De Gascogne take great pride in the producing high quality products, using only premium ingredients. These include carefully selected fat liver, meats and fresh ingredients from French farms that are dedicated to the respect and well-being of animals. The packaging is also bright & colourful and so looks great in our gift baskets.I asked 11 members of the Baskets Galore Team to take part. Paté has a distinctive taste & maybe isn't something you would eat very often so a few team members decided to opt out of this one.We all had to select one from the "birds" selection and one from the "animals" section that we would like to taste. The 2 most popular choices out of the 6 were the ones we taste tested.The final result ended up being Duck and Wild Boar. Everyone seemed to really enjoy both these flavours (even some people who weren't sure they would like paté). However, most people said if they had to select a winner it would be the duck as it wasn't quite as strong tasted as the Wild Boar.20140402_121527

I found when opening the tins that a layer of duck "fat" was spread across the top of the contents. We just wanted to assure you that the paté is meant to look like this & this layer is added by the manufacturer to help preserve the contents. These items have a long shelf life & it’s a sign of the quality of the products that this layer is there at all, rather than a sign of anything untoward!

20140402_122000

Protective "fatty" layer, you can scrape off before consumingAlthough if you ever have any queries about a product you have received then please do get in touch & we are happy to check it for you.