The European Union has announced its intention to outlaw the force-feeding of geese for fois gras — in 15 years.
The lengthy time frame is to allow French producers to find alternative production methods. In France, fois gras is very nearly the national food. Demand for fois gras outpaces supply. So much so, that a significant fois gras industry has developed in Hungary, where there are 30,000 small fois gras farmers, with the majority of the fois gras going to France.
No word yet on why it should take 15 years to find alternative methods to replace and outlaw a practice that animal rights activists have called cruel.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Eric Olsen
I will stock up now
2 - Andrew Mudd
I'm sorry but Fois Gras is just plain good stuff. Some things aren't worth the cruelty that's needed to produce them. Veal, for example, isn't. But Fois Gras... yeah. It's worth it.
3 - Chef Nick
I happened across this article while searching for vendors, anyways just to be a stickler for terminology Fois Gras is the truffel itself. The geese are involved in the production of pate de Fois Gras. As an American I say to hell with the French and thier double dealing politicians as a chef I am compassionate to my Franco bretheren in the kitchen who have worked for centuries to define the culinary standards worldwide, only to be undermined by tree hugging hippies who hold nothing sacred. I would gladly burn my chefs hat in protest.
4 - Anita Campbell
Thanks for the pointer on using the correct terminology, Chef Nick.
15 years is a long time, so I think you can hang on to your chef's hat for a while longer.
5 - CK
I don't need 15 years to think of a suitable replacement delicacy for those who enjoy partaking in a little fois gras. Perhaps they could get chained to a chair in their chosen restaurant and have a tube shoved down their necks to fill their stomachs until they rupture.
Enjoy.
6 - Anita Campbell
Indeed.
7 - ClubhouseCancer
And those who eat cheeseburgers should be chopped up in little pieces, fried on a griddle, and served to fat folks in a diner.
I think there's a legitimate discussion about cruelty to animals in the food industry, but stuff like comment 5 convinces me that some people aren't particularly serious about it.
Foie gras is delicious.
8 - Eric Olsen
what's the deal with livers, and why are cowards called "lilylivered"? Why is "liver" used to represent the whole? Why isn't it "lilyspleened" or "lilyduodenum"? By the way, all of my younger daughter's organs are named "lily"
9 - ClubhouseCancer
During the middle ages, the liver rivalled the heart for the organ most considered to be the seat of life and health and fortitude, although I'm not sure exactly why.
I'm also not sure exactly how to source this, but I guess there's something in the OED. Anyone got access?
10 - ClubhouseCancer
Also, with love from Tom the Dancing Bug.
Hilarious.
11 - Dave Nalle
>>No word yet on why it should take 15 years to find alternative methods to replace and outlaw a practice that animal rights activists have called cruel.<<
Because it's yummy? And because animal rights activists cry wolf so much that no one takes them seriously. And I imagine it's 15 years so that those in power now can enjoy it until they die and leave their children deprived after they're gone.
Dave
12 - Frankie
I can't believe that in the 21st century there are still people who think that this sickening level of cruelty is tolerable because the result is 'yummy'.
13 - Dave Nalle
Not only do I tolerate it for yumminess, I keep pet geese and like them a lot and I'm still not traumatized by it so long as it's not being done to MY geese. Am I sick or what?
Dave
14 - Eric
Not sick, just hypocritical, but that's ok, it is no less than one can expect from half-wittedness.
And it is all very well saying that those who eat cheese burgers should also be chopped up etc, but at least the animals that wind up as burgers, chops, fillets etc can almost certainly be guaranteed a reasonable quality of life beforehand. Not like the ducks and geese who have to remain immobile and wind up losing the use of their legs and dragging themselves round on their wings
15 - bhw
but at least the animals that wind up as burgers, chops, fillets etc can almost certainly be guaranteed a reasonable quality of life beforehand.
Bwhahahahahahaha!
Never a more untrue word was spoken. It's all a nasty business, unless you're specifically talking about free-range cattle and what not.
16 - Eric
As it is, we are top of the food chain and we have been hunting and killing for meat for thousands of years. You're right, it did start to get nasty. Why should we get to invent such cruel ways of producing a delicacy?
17 - bhw
Well, because we're at the top.
But I'm not a vegetarian or animal rights activist. My family eats all sorts of meat. I just choose to not think about how that meat got on my table, for the most part.
But this mad cow disease potential is changing that. I'm starting to pay attention, and it's grossing me out, such as when I learned that calves are fed cow blood instead of milk, so that the milk can be sold to us instead.
That's n-a-s-t-y beyond belief.
18 - andy marsh
Eric - it's like I tell my dogs all the time, yeah, I talk to my dogs, we have opposable thumbs, we get to make the rules!
19 - Eric Olsen
opposable thumbs and toilets - we rule!
20 - andy marsh
I only rule if I remember to put the seat down! Daughters!
21 - Victor Plenty
If you wonder why the liver, in some cultures, was seen as the seat of emotions like love and courage, look at a 3-D model of the human anatomy. (Or take a university-level biology course that has you dissect a fetal pig.)
Even in those of us who have not been force-fed through tubes, the liver is huge. It is much larger than the heart, and the liver's red tinge makes it visually more prominent than larger organs like the intestines.
As for cruelty in food production, I am torn in two. (How's that for a graphic image?)
When I learned of the methods used to produce veal and foie gras, for example, the information repulsed me. Now I cannot eat these foods no matter how delicious they may be. (Please note that I am not telling anyone else what they can or cannot eat.)
On the other hand, if we think about it too much, all food can be thought to suffer in some way. Fresh fruits and vegetables are still alive, at least at the cellular level. That's why they are fresh. When the cells die, we call the food rotten.
If I eat a fresh apple or carrot, the living cells of the plant will dissolve in my stomach acid, which is indisputably fatal. Even if it does not cause pain such as we might recognize in a dog, a cat, or a human, dissolving in acid is a grisly end for any living being.
Since I am not yet enlightened enough to survive as a Breatharian, I cannot avoid causing this kind of suffering. But I don't lose a lot of sleep over it.
After all, it's not as if the carrots (or the cows) would have lived forever had I not eaten them.
22 - Dave Nalle
I like veal. When I eat it I think about how I'm taking one more farting cow out of the cycle that is destroying the ozone layer.
Dave
23 - Distorted Angel
While I haven't become a vegetarian, I have chosen to remain willfully ignorant of a great deal of what goes on in the world of meat production (you mean chicken doesn't grow on those little plastic trays -- in parts?). Like you, Victor, I avoid veal and foie gras. It seems to me that if we choose to eat meat, we owe the animals a humane existence and a swift death.
24 - fois gross
Whoa. sorry, you are all fois GROSS. Please look at www.gourmetcruelty.com. At least give it a fair shot. People with compassion passed recent legislation in california banning fois gras production. And it's banned in 13 countries including the UK. Live and let live has a certain arrogance when animals are completely at our mercy.
There are so many other things to eat. Ducks that are force fed literally explode alive, and fully conscious, from the pressure, many live with gaping wounds thru which water pours when they try to drink. It's not just an unnecessary evil, it's unthinkable. And the person who raises geese? oh my god.
Yeah, OK, we all get the last laugh. We're human. We don't HAVE to show any mercy to those that are defenseless. But we all know that animals want to live, and they suffer, as we do. Why create more suffering in the world? It makes me sick that people are so sadistic that would participate in this cruelty. Maybe that's the real difference between them and us.
god help us.
25 - DrPat
Did you actually read any of the comments here before posting, foie gross? Or are you just jerking the knee?