Comments on: Food porn

By: Nicolas Morin

Nicolas Morin — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 12:31:30 +0000

Hum. More or less the same debate as for corridas I guess: just the kind of issue that does make some strange political bedfellows.
I have to say that even though I don’t oppose the production of foie gras, I wouldn’t oppose a law outlawing it either… which, for *cultural* reasons (here you have it…) is pretty unlikely in France (there’s an understatement).

By: walt

walt — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 15:41:46 +0000

“Pretty rough.” There’s an understatement. I’m no vegetarian, and spent enough time on a farm as a child to have no qualms about eating eggs, chickens, turkeys, and beef. (Veal is another issue, and in fact I don’t eat veal.)

But foie gras, for me, falls into the category where the end can’t possibly justify the means. If I heard that cat stew was the world’s greatest dish (particularly if the cats are force-fed for two or three weeks), I wouldn’t be able to eat it either.

For a San Francisco food critic, it’s particularly interesting: The state outlaws production of foie gras (the law takes full effect in 2012) for humanitarian reasons, joining a dozen or so civilized nations, but the critic sure does love those spurting chunks…

I never thought I’d favor Arnold Schwarzenegger over Alice Waters, but given Waters’ bogus “oh, ducks gorge themselves before they migrate anyway” copout and The Governator’s surprise signature on the foie gras ban, I’ll make an exception in this case.

By: Nicolas Morin

Nicolas Morin — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 13:46:53 +0000

That’s right, producing Foie Gras is pretty rough but, Boy, you do miss something! With a nice white Sauternes, or, better still, much more original but harder to find, a Vin de Paille! That being said, there’s a wide variety of qualities in Foie Gras, and it can be really bad.
It’s found on almost every French family’s christmas table and each member of the family usually has a choice for the first course: Foie Gras, or Salmon, or Oysters.
Gee, just talking about it…