Evil Foie Gras

From the NYT courtesy of of Margory Cohen:

"Fresh from a victory in Chicago, where the City Council voted last week to ban the sale of foie gras, animal rights activists have set their sights on Philadelphia, where they are collecting signatures on a petition to ban the delicacy there. Their influence on Whole Foods Market has led a foie gras producer to file a lawsuit against the natural-food grocery chain.

"Events like these have spurred the foie gras industry, which estimates its sales were $20 million last year, to organize and to take on its opponents. In the lawsuit, Sonoma Foie Gras is charging Whole Foods with "intentional interference with contract." According to the complaint, filed in January, Whole Foods told Grimaud Farms last fall to stop processing and distributing Sonoma's ducks and foie gras or the grocer would no longer do business with the company. Grimaud, which sells ducks to Whole Foods, will terminate its contract with Sonoma at the end of this month.

(Snip)

"If Sonoma loses the suit, it could hasten the disappearance of foie gras in California. In 2004 California passed a law banning the production and sale of foie gras by 2012.

"I hope I'm retired by 2012," said Thomas Keller, owner of the French Laundry in the Napa Valley and Per Se in Manhattan, who believes the government should not tell people what to eat. "If force-feeding a duck is
cruel, then packing chickens in a cage is cruel, and then the veal and the beef. We are all going to be vegetarians soon if they have their way. We should probably start converting now."

I should add that I am a bit conflicted. I'm not a big fan of force- feeding ducks, though I understand that AR activists (surprise!) exaggerate its horrors. But I love foie gras, and on purely libertarian grounds...

I like Charlie Trotter's stance. "Charlie Trotter, who stopped serving foie gras in his eponymous restaurant
five years ago because he did not like what he had seen on several foie gras farms, said he is not an animal rights activist but is opposed to interference from the government.

"When I took foie gras off the menu I was not trying to make a political statement," he said. "I am certainly not gleeful about this. I am very much a libertarian." And he added: "I don't think government should tell people not to smoke in restaurants." " YES!

According to an LAT piece sent by Reid he has been more outspoken than that in the past: "According to an earlier article in the Chicago Tribune, Trotter refused to sign an anti-foie gras pledge promoted by Farm Sanctuary, saying "These people are idiots. Understand my position: I have nothing to do with a group like that. I think they're pathetic…. " "

Chicago chef Rick Tramonto points to exactly what is wrong. He "...finds nothing funny in the current situation. "Unfortunately, the public is the loser," he says. "If [animal rights groups are] going to dictate what we're going to eat, what's next? That's the problem that I have. I wish I could say that the people have spoken, but I don't really think the people had anything to do with this.""

He remains guardedly optimistic: ""What are they going to do? Are we going to see them leading chefs away in handcuffs?...My integrity is my integrity and I won't break any laws, but the thing's absurd."

Meanwhile, according to the NYT : "Legislation to ban the production or the production and sale of foie gras
has been introduced but not passed in six other states, including New York, where it has been withdrawn."

So far....