From the article: *A few dozen protesters picketed the restaurants of acclaimed chef Thomas Keller last weekend, over his use of an ingredient that has become a lightning rod in the culinary world – foie gras.
Chefs like Anthony Bourdain sing its praises, calling foie gras “one of the 10 most important flavors in gastronomy.”*
Fuck you, hippie protestors! You’ve already got California passing a law that takes effect in 2012 banning the best food on Earth, you thought you had Chicago but at least they had the sack to overturn their ban on foie gras, and now you’re trying to take on Manhattan.
Piss off! Worry about things that matter, not the fate of some bird being humanely harvested for its meat and livers. Don’t you have baby seals being clubbed somewhere to save? A dolphin in a tuna net? Anything?
So, fuck you, self-important save the world wannabees…leave my favorite food ALONE! LEAVE IT ALONE! And Britney too!
I’m half-tempted to join them in protest with my own little sign that says “Foie Gras Is Evil…because it’s so fucking expensive!!”
As a vegetarian, i’m not especially interested in banning foie gras. I think there are plenty of practices in the livestock industry that are more cruel and inhumane. Actually, even in the foie gras industry, the general conditions that many of the birds are kept in (small individual cages; not allowed to roam around, etc.) is probably more problematic, for me, than the force-feeding itself.
I do think the main spokesperson in the article is a bit of a douchebag, though.
The first reason she gives for the opposition to foie gras is:
Yeah, that’s what it is. All those lefty vegetarians are just nationalistic Francophobes. :rolleyes: Fucking moron.
On the one hand: Eating liver in any form is roughly as appealing as eating the oil filter from a car that’s just been driven cross country. And if you’re that attached to having one particular, expensive food available, you need to get a fucking life. It’s fancy food, not a constitutional right, and the outrage over the outrage is a fine example of why lots of normal people think “foodies” are completely retarded.
On the other hand: Of all the food industry practices to protest, you chose foie gras? Really? This is a fine example of why lots of normal people think animal rights people are completely retarded. Go look at what your organic beef was fed while still alive (hint: corn), or where your free-range chicken was raised (hint: in a cage) if you want something to protest. Then go write angry letters to people who are actually involved in raising and slaughtering those animals, not the fucking chef cooking them. That’s like pissing on the 16-year-old cashier because you don’t like McDonalds’ corporate policies.
In other words, anyone who gets particularly outraged either by foie gras or by people protesting against it needs to get a fucking life.
Where, outside a fancy restaurant, can you get pate de foie gras in the U.S.? There’s pate for sale in supermarkets and liquor stores, but every package I’ve ever seen was made of pork liver, not goose.
Can I agree in principle with the OP, but not be expected to eat any liver? Cuz I really don’t like it. Here, you can have mine. Please, take it. Quickly.
Obviously, we need to test that argument. I say we kill the protesters the same way the animals are slaughtered. Then, if any of them say it was inhumane, we’ll consider changing the method.
I don’t normally like liver, but we went to Top of the Mark in SF one night and there was a bit of foie gras on our nibbles plate, and OMG that stuff was like an orgasm on a plate.
I try to be a nice typical liberal California nutjob, but if I get a chance to eat foie gras again I’m sure as heck going to. It helps that I was raised on a farm and the feedings I’ve watched online don’t look more cruel than other factory farming methods.
But you realize, i assume, that they are not protesting against the manner of the slaughter itself. Hell, many of the protesters would probably argue that the actual killing is one of the least inhumane parts of the whole process.
You’ve never had foie done the right way then. I too detest liver in many/most of its forms. Foie Gras is in a class of its own. It doesn’t taste “livery”, it has a texture unlike any other food on the planet. Its meat butter, baby, in its truest form.
Try it sometime. Its incredible, but it can be underwhelming in the hands of an inferior chef, or if the product isn’t good to begin with. Canadian goose foie is inferior to American duck foie, at least in my experience.
Specialty stores. Be prepared to pay big bucks though. Some of those country pates you see that have some/all pork/chicken liver in them (with or without true foie) are pretty damn good though. The only thing I don’t really like on those is the aspic. Meat butter (foie gras)=yummy food of gods, meat jelly=weird and gross.
Ah, another person who hasn’t tried well-prepared foie gras. Go out and try it. Live a little. Forget that its liver. It isn’t anything like the liver and onions Gramma used to make you eat.
Cheers!
Yes, and the counter argument is that they feel no pain and are happy to overeat. Kinda like Americans at the trough of McDonalds I suppose. Even if the production of foie gras can be reasonably shown to be cruel, I don’t care. Its just a bird raised for slaughter. Chickens fare far worse and I like to eat them, too.
TESTIFY! I thought the exact same thing the first time I was supposed to try it. I thought “liver? Ewww!”…boy was I wrong.
It is truly the most orgasmic food eating experience out there, followed closely by truffles, properly prepared sweetbreads, lobster in its myriad forms and caviar.
All of which I sadly cannot afford much of. Its definitely a special occasion food unless you are wealthy or work in the right kind of restaurant whereby you can take advantage of what I fondly refer to as “scooby snacks” or just “scoobs”…little scraps of the shit the chef will flip you if he or she likes you.