I have never tried foie gras. I may at some point try foie gras because of my desire to try something at least once--assuming that there isn't a high chance of it killing me instantaneously. But whether or not I try foie gras, I find this to be bizarre:
In the city once known as the world's slaughterhouse, restaurants, politicians and animal rights activists are worked up over a goose liver delicacy.
A proposed ban on foie gras has divided Chicago's fine restaurants and stirred a two-pronged debate: whether it is humane to force-feed geese and ducks to plump up their livers, and whether politicians should be telling diners what they can and cannot eat.
"Our laws are reflection of our culture, and in our culture it's not acceptable to torture small animals," said Alderman Joseph Moore, whose proposed ordinance would affect at least 19 restaurants in Chicago, by one count.
Chicago was once "hog butcher for the world," as the poet Carl Sandburg so famously put it. The vast Union Stock Yards were the setting for Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel "The Jungle," about conditions in turn-of-the-century meatpacking plants.
While that era is long gone, Chicago is still very much a city of carnivores, with its steakhouses and its Chicago-style hot dogs with all the trimmings.
"I never thought this would happen in my lifetime. It feels so politically driven," said Rick Tramonto, the chef and owner of the four-star restaurant Tru. "We're the meatpacking part of the country. We're the Midwest. We're farming states. It's strange to me that this is happening."
A City Council committee approved the ordinance last month, and the full council could vote this month. But Mayor Richard M. Daley has made it clear he does not like the idea of banning certain foods, grumbling, "Pretty soon, you can't drink."
Hmmm, let's see: We send cows to the slaughterhouse. We kill chickens and eat them. We consume lamb. We digest all sorts of pork consumables (unless, like me, we keep a semblance of kosher). And yet, somehow a fracas has emerged regarding foie gras. Mais pourquoi?
Rich and buttery, foie gras, pronounced fwah-GRAH and French for "fat liver," often is served sliced and pan-seared, frequently with fruit or atop greens or a cut of steak or veal.
To fatten the liver of waterfowl, a tube is inserted into their throats twice a day and partially cooked corn is pumped down the esophagus. Only three foie gras farms -- two in New York and one in California -- operate in the United States.
"Force-feeding birds to have livers up to 10 times their size is appalling and most citizens are shocked to learn this," said Gene Bauston, president of the animal rights group Farm Sanctuary, which is part of a worldwide movement against foie gras.
But Guillermo Gonzalez, who owns operates Sonoma Foie Gras, a foie gras producer about 80 miles east of San Francisco, contends the process is not abusive.
"The images using a tube to feed is duck is not pretty, but the fact of the matter is the anatomy of ducks and geese are perfectly adaptable," he said.
Let us assume arguendo that the process is appalling. So then would the aforementioned acts of killing cattle, fowl, lamb and porcine creatures. Have we just tired of focusing on these acts and have decided to turn our attention to goose liver? Je ne sais pas.
And of course, the following is predictable:
In October, a restaurant that serves foie gras, Cyrano's Bistrot, was vandalized after its owner testified against the proposed ban. A window was smashed and a door was smeared with a blood-red liquid.
Needless to say, if such tactics get repeated, you can conceivably kiss your steaks, your chickens, your lamb chops and your pork roasts goodbye. I don't think it will happen tomorrow. It may never happen. But it is worth noting anew that your tastes are subject to the extreme dictates of political correctness, and that political correctness may not be content with influencing only one portion of your diet.
