Foie Gras Follies: San Francisco's Symbolic Resolution, Ignoring Lesson from Chicago
By Meredith Brody, Monday, Mar. 30 2009 @ 1:50PM
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Food News / Restaurant Gossip
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But they ignored the lesson of Chicago, not quite as renowned a foodie mecca as San Francisco, but apparently a more realistic one, whose city council banned restaurants from serving foie gras in April 2006 and dropped it in May of 2008.
Mayor Richard Daley said that the ban was the "silliest ordinance" that the city council had ever passed, saying it made Chicago the "laughingstock of the nation." Many Chicago restaurants continued to serve foie gras, despite the ban. (In fact, foie gras acquired something of an speakeasy-style allure much as did alcohol during our nation's great experiment with Prohibition. And we all know how well that turned out.)
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals decried the overturning of the ban in Chicago. (Big surprise.)
The production of foie gras involves overfeeding of ducks and
geese in order to produce enlarged fatty livers. Proponents of banning
foie gras call this force-feeding, insisting on its violence and
cruelty. Proponents of banning foie gras, interestingly enough, can
turn to rather violent and cruel methods their ownselves. In 2003 they
targeted chef Laurent Manrique,
who had partnered with two El Salvadoran brothers to produce and sell
artisanal foie gras. His home was spray-painted, acid was poured on
his car, and the shop, Sonoma Saveurs, was broken into, also
spray-painted, had water left turned on after plumbing was plugged with
cement, damaging not just Manrique's shop but others adjoining his in a
historic 1842 adobe building on the Sonoma Plaza. Most frightening, and
reminiscent of tactics of anti-abortion groups, videotapes showing
Manrique and his family inside their home were delivered, along with
threatening letters.
Coincidentally, of course, Sonoma Saveurs
no longer has a retail store, and Manrique is no longer associated with
it. (Re-writing history somewhat, a current staffer said when asked
that Manrique had only been involved with their adjacent restaurant.)
Despite
similar techniques being aimed at Chicago chef and native of Dordogne,
France, Didier Durand -- while campaigning to end the ban, he was
threatened, his restaurant's windows were blood-stained, and its patio
was vandalized -- he persevered. Now he plans to add a foie gras museum to his restaurant.
Many
restauranteurs and others feel that PETA and their ilk are using foie
gras as a stalking horse. If they succeed in banning it nationwide,
soon to follow would be, among other foodstuffs, lobster, veal, and
chicken.
The delicacy is produced by only
three artisans in the US, and consumed in miniscule amounts, as local
Incanto restaurant owner Mark Pastore writes in a long, thoughtful, and
eminently worth reading open letter entitled Shock and Foie: The War against Dietary Self-Determinism, (already presciently linked by our Robert Lauriston here weeks before the SF resolution was passed).
He discourses learningly on gavage, the force-feeding technique used on animals who, unlike humans, have no gag reflex, and which is used routinely to feed ill or injured duck and geese.
As Pastore wrote, it's not cruelty per se that cause the foie gras producers to be
the current cause celebre:
"Foie gras famers -- and those who serve it -- are targeted for simple and eminently
practical reasons: This is quite literally the smallest and most defenseless segment
of the U.S. meat industry...the attack on foie gras consumption in the U.S. is
therefore a tactic...Don't start with a full frontal assault on a food that everybody
eats."
(I.e., trying to ban chicken would have your everyday chicken-eaters up in arms, as well as producers and restauranteurs, despite the well-known battery-farm situations as seen in such movies as Food Inc. Beware the power of KFC and KFC eaters, as PETA and their ilk know well. Start small.)
San Francisco's resolution was championed by Ross Mirkarimi, who was quoted in advance of the resolution's passing about the deep thinking that went into its creation: "I'll be honest with you, we don't put that much time into this. We craft these within minutes."
Gavin Newsom's press secretary, Nathan Ballard, using sarcasm as his weapon of choice, had this to say
when asked his opinion of the resolution: "Clearly Supervisor Mirkarimi
has crafted a solution to one of the most challenging issues facing our
city. This landmark legislation will soon seek its place in the history
books."
Still, since Berkeley declared itself a nuclear-free zone, no nuclear warheads have gone off within its city limits, nor nuclear power plants have been constructed. Who's laughing now?
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