Wolfgang Puck Sends Letter Supporting End to Foie Gras Sales

From Sfist.com....

Although his gastronomic reputation has, let's fact it, been marred due to his frozen food and canned soup lines, Spago founder and chef Wolfgang Puck still has some pull. So, he penned an open letter to California restaurants still serving foie gras. And the letter, sent by Puck in February, was intended to sooth the frayed nerves of chefs who don't like being told what they can and cannot serve at their spoons. (As you know, foie gras will be banned at the start of July this year.) Vegansaurus' wonderful Laura Beck (by way of SF Weekly) got her hot hands on the letter. Check it:

Foie Gras to Be Banned in California

Apparently, this will happen in 8 months. I had no idea!

Excerpted from The New York Times.....

In eight months, the sale of foie gras will be banned in California. But for seven hours on Friday night, at a restaurant appropriately known as Animal, three chefs presented an eight-course meal that was nothing short of a glorification of this soon-to-be-outlawed delicacy. There was smoked foie gras, roasted foie gras, steamed foie gras and liquefied foie gras, injected into agnolotti. It was served with veal tongue, yogurt, prosciutto, mustard ice cream and truffles. There was even a foie gras dessert: a brownie sundae with foie gras Chantilly.

With all its gluttonous excess, and with the backdrop of the animal rights protesters, the sold-out dinner became the fattiest of food as political protest, offering a clash of competing passions in a battle that has reverberated across the nation but finally settled here, the first state in the nation to criminalize the sale of foie gras, the fattened liver of a goose or a duck.

It was also a perhaps belated realization by these chefs and their fans that a law signed eight years ago is truly taking effect and is about to change the way they do business drastically, putting California on the front lines of the battle about force-feeding ducks and geese to produce the silky liver delicacy.

San Francisco Passes Anti-Foie Gras Resolution

San Francisco supervisors have passed a resolution supporting city restaurants that remove foie gras from their menus. California will be banning that awful stuff in about three years.

Foie gras is the liver of a duck or a goose that has been specially fattened by force feeding. (Ugh. I just find the whole description vile and gruesome.)

Foie Gras Disappearing From San Diego Restaurants

Here in Seattle, NARN (Northwest Animal Rights Network) has been staging protests at a local restaurant that serves foie gras. They've caught a lot of grief over it. They get laughed at by patrons and they are criticized by local paper The Stranger. I can't say I've always felt it was the best use of time.

Having said that though, I see that these types of protests have had an effect in the San Diego area. In addition, back in 2004, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a bill making foie gras illegal starting in 2012.

I guess small protests like NARN's seem futile when compared to the overwhelming issue of animal welfare, but you have to think that a number of small protests over time can have a large cumulative impact. No single effort is insignificant when combined with many others doing the exact same thing.

Chicago Lifts Foie Gras Ban

After a short two years, Chicago lifts its ban on foie gras. Here's why.

Mayor Richard Daley had called the ban the "silliest ordinance" the city council ever passed and said it made Chicago "the laughingstock of the nation."

Please. I highly doubt that.

"I thought it was us sticking our nose in something we probably shouldn't have even been in," Alderman Dick Mell told the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, adding that veal calves and chickens also suffer in confinement.
"There's some cruelty out there, folks."

Really? How nice of you to point it out....and not care.

Photo by Farm Sanctuary.

"Ethical" Foie Gras To Be Introduced

Just in time for the holidays!

The first "ethical" foie gras to be made in Britain is being launched by a supermarket chain next week.

The goose liver and duck liver pates have been made without the traditional force-feeding of the birds.

Waitrose, who is selling the products, has named them "faux gras" and marketing them as a British twist on the French product, made without cruelty to the birds.

The supermarket stopped selling French foie gras six years ago, as the tide of popular opinion turned against the force feeding of birds - traditionally the only way to give the livers the truly plump feel and smooth taste that is so prized by gourmets.

It has the backing of the animal charity RSPCA which says the faux gras was created with welfare in mind.

A spokesman for the supermaket admits that "fans of real foie gras will realise this is not the real thing."

However, David Stone, a buyer for the chain, said: "We think this is as near to authentic foie gras as we can get without the cruelty. We are confident we have come up with the holy grail of the gastronomic world - a pate with the richness of traditional foie gras, but without any of the guilt."

I've never eaten foie gras so I have no idea how it tastes. And, of course, the new "ethical" product was still made from a living being. But it's a start and change has to start with something.

Photo by nikaboyce.

Canadian Animal Rights Activists Target Foie Gras Farm

Activists in Quebec have targeted Aux Champs d'Elisee, and are attempting a boycott.

Quebec animal rights activists are calling on restaurants and grocery stores to stop selling foie gras products after releasing controversial video footage and alleging abuse at a local producer.

In their latest attack on the controversial industry, activists targeted another Quebec foie gras company, Aux Champs d'Elisee and its farm east of Montreal.

Animal rights group Global Action Network alleged on Monday that a volunteer for the group who went undercover at the farm this summer witnessed several acts caught on hidden video that could be construed as cruelty towards animals.

Quebec provincial police have opened an investigation into the allegations.

Global Action Network spokesman Andrew Plumbly said it's a product restaurants and grocery stores don't need to sell.

Here is a link to Global Action Network with the video.

Photo by Jason Hutchens