Foie gras gives rise to question of ethics
February 5, 2015
Good news Californians, gourmands and sadists alike — in my experience, the three have been known to go hand in hand — a California judge has officially lifted the statewide ban on foie gras, meaning West Coast residents can finally get their fill of force-fed fowl.
For those of you unfamiliar with the delicacy, or those of you who have never had to cater a silent auction, or those of you who are not in the highest possible income bracket, foie gras is a food product produced from the fatty livers of duck or geese.
“Fatty livers,” you say to yourself, salivating like Pavlov’s Dog staying overnight with Quasimodo. “However can I get my mitts on one of those tasty vital organs?”
The answer is quite simple. In the grand tradition, dating all the way back to 2500 B.C. with the Ancient Egyptians, one simply shoves a feeding tube into a duck or goose — your preference — and force feeds the bird a slurry of corn meal three to four times daily for roughly two weeks.
Following the force feeding, the liver is extracted from the bird — do whatever you wish with the rest of the carcass; this isn’t “A Christmas Carol” — and prepared according to recipe.
Unless you like your poultry like Guantanamo inmates, I would imagine a large dollop of pâté doesn’t sound terribly appetizing right now.
Personally, I have never tried foie gras, a dish allegedly so tasty that Charles Gérard, French actor and director, once described it as “the supreme fruit of gastronomy.” Still, I cannot help but agree with PETA on this one.
Somewhere in the distance, one might hear pseudo-libertarian rumblings in the background decrying gastronomic regulations and the right of individuals to shove pipes down whatever’s throats they so wish, so long as they don’t harm another human.
Pay them no heed.
That said, allow me to say this in defense of those succulently bloated liver products: anyone with the money to buy foie gras on a regular enough basis that a statewide ban affects them is, most likely, guilty of more culpable crimes than shoving corn down a goose’s throat. I’m looking at you, Donald Trump.
Then again, if you’re reading this, you’re either a student like me, or a teacher.
In either case, I would be willing to wager that the foie gras ban has affected none of us, and not just because it happened in California.