May 21, 2008
Shove It In: Foie Gras
Last week the Chicago City Council overturned its ban delicious, smooth, and flavorful foie gras. Rejoice, liver lovers! See, the process of making foie gras involves geese-fattening, which, more or less, means one has to shove food down the birds' throats. And some view the process as a bit cruel.
Anyway, a pro-ife SFGate reader writes o Michael Bauer to, well, basically tell him how righteous he and his girlfriend are. Also, he asked for his thoughts on foie gras. Bauer rebuts with a colorful image of seared foie gras with caramelized apples, shallots and cherries, explaining:
As for foie gras, when I was in Gascony a decade or so ago, I spent some time on a small farm that was fattening geese and producing foie gras, and it seemed to me the birds were humanely treated and lined up and waited patiently at feeding time. However, I have also seen the videos that show the abusive side of the practice.
It seems like if it can be done kindly--if that's possible--then this shouldn't be a debate among meat eaters. But what say you, readers? Should SF ban the savory paste that's been made since the ancient Egyptian times? Or will is set a dangerous precedent?
Bas relief of Egyptian pushing food down geese throats: Wikicommons
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Ban Foie Gras?!
Short Answer: NO
Long Answer: NO WAY
If they didn't want to be force fed until their livers exploded, they shouldn't be so damn tasty.
I'm more worried about people getting guns shoved down their throats in SF.
Who wants to eat an organ anyway? Muscles only for me! But I am getting sick and tired of the various bans in this town. I only want to hear about the right kind of banns from now on!
There is no need for the city of SF to do anything, unless they want to effect something before 2012. This is because California already has banned foie gras statewide, effective in 2012. In 2004, S.B. 1520 was signed by the governor, which bans the force feeding of ducks and geese for pate de foie gras production and prohibits the sale of products resulting from that process. Hopefully the law will get repealed before 2012, but right now that's the state of affairs.
You know they will, because it will give them another reason not to worry about real issues facing the city. (cf. plastic bags.)
Show me the video of them lining up to be force-fed, and I'll happily belly up to the fois gras table myself.
But until I've seen that video with my own eyes, I'm not going to take those pro-fois testimonials at face value, and neither should anyone else. I'm much more inclined to trust someone like John Burton, who says it's fucking cruel as all-get-out.
Fois producers and Michael Bauer both have commercial and cultural interests at stake and so are biased. Note the word "seemed" in Bauer's piece.
Don't get me wrong: I want to see the evidence Fois is farmed humanely; pate is yummy.
But all indications are to the contrary.
Yeah Generic, we all know Burton wouldn't pander to the PETA crowd.
Read Anthony Bourdain's article in salon about foie gras. He says the geese actually do come up to be fed. They can't be too inhumane with the geese, otherwise it damages the liver.
I love how people scream about foie gras when the horrors of battery cages affect far more people/animals.
Wanna fight animal cruelty? worry more about foster farms and tyson.