Chicago bids frustrated farewell to foie gras

In a few weeks it will be illegal to sell foie gras in Chicago; but fans of the delicacy are not going quietly into the night.

On a recent evening more than 100 of them paid $150 each to dine on grilled foie gras with cherry chutney and peppercorn brioche; salt and herb cured foie gras with lamb prosciutto; ravioli of foie gras, pheasant and apple and other treats as chefs talked of overturning the ban.

'It does bother me the way it's raised, but then my grandfather raised cattle in Kansas, so I'm very aware of what farm life is like,' said Pati Heestand, a retired graphic designer and foie gras aficionado.

Chicago's City Council in April voted to make the city the first in the country to ban the restaurant sale of foie gras, which detractors argue is inhumanely produced by force-feeding ducks and geese through a tube to fatten their livers.

The ban is to take effect Aug. 22 when restaurants found selling foie gras will face a $500 fine.

Foie gras proponents argue that the feeding of the high protein diet through a tube is not inhumane because the fowl do not have a gag reflex like humans. They say the extreme amount of feeding is somewhat similar to what the birds do in the wild anyway to store energy before long migrations.

'I've been to a foie gras farm,' said Dean Zanella, executive chef at 312 Chicago. 'They seem very happy. I've never seen one (bird) being mistreated.'

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Source - MSNBC


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