The foie gras wars continue. Animal rights activists alleging cruel force-feeding of ducks and geese to make the traditional liver pate served in high-end restaurants have taken their campaign to San Francisco, plus Napa County, Portland, and now Pittsburgh. During one of the regular "Wordsworth" poetry readings of the Seattle City Council's Culture, Arts and Parks Committee, Judith Roche excoriated foie gras (second item down, here).

The San Francisco effort has been particularly over-the-top, most notably when activists in 2003 attacked the home and car of chef and foie gras booster Laurent Manrique. The SF Chron (1st link, above) reported:

A top San Francisco chef has become the target of radical animal-rights activists in a series of attacks that police are calling domestic terrorism. Aqua chef Laurent Manrique has been the victim of vandals who spray-painted his home and splashed his car with acid, and he has received threatening letters and videotapes. It's part of what police say may be a national campaign aimed at those who produce a signature ingredient of French haute cuisine -- foie gras -- and the chefs who use it.

Foie gras -- fattened goose or duck liver -- has become controversial because of the way it is produced, which involves force-feeding fowl. How much the animals suffer -- or whether they suffer at all -- has been the subject of much debate.

The worst damage came last week when vandals broke into the new foie gras specialty store and restaurant that Manrique and his partners had planned to open next month in a historic adobe building on the Sonoma Plaza. Called Sonoma Saveurs, it will offer various foie gras preparations plus wine, cheese and other local products. Vandals plugged new plumbing with chunks of cement, spray-painted the walls and appliances, and turned on the water, according to police. The resulting flood forced two neighboring stores to shut down...

....The attacks began last month when vandals sprayed red paint on Manrique's Mill Valley home and on the Santa Rosa home of Didier Jaubert, a partner in the foie gras venture. Attackers also put acid-based etching foam on their cars and windows, and glued shut locks and garage doors. The Bite Back Web magazine says that etched on Manrique's car windows was "foie gras is animal torture" and "murderer."

.....The perpetrators left a videotape, which Manrique said was shot from his garden and showed his family relaxing inside their home. It was accompanied by a letter warning that they were being watched....Then came threatening letters that warned the men to "stop or be stopped," said Jaubert.

L.A. Times food writer David Shaw isn't terribly sympathetic to the protestors. Writing last week, he remarked:

The anti-foie gras terrorists argue that force-feeding ducks to make their livers grow to eight or 10 times normal size amounts to torture. With the help of such renowned scholars of veterinary science as Kim Basinger, Martin Sheen and Paul McCartney, these broccoli-crazed activists persuaded the California State Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenducker to enact a law last year outlawing the production of foie gras, beginning in 2012.

As a longtime supporter of such causes as the civil rights and women's rights movements, I fully support the right of peaceful protest...But there's a way to protest any or all of this....Present your case forcefully — but peacefully and responsibly.

....I side with those who say that when properly done — as it is at Sonoma Foie Gras, for example — ducks do not appear to suffer pain in the two to four seconds that it takes to feed them the fresh corn or cornmeal required to enlarge their livers. But I have to be honest. I love foie gras and I would continue to eat it even if the ducks did suffer.

Bad-boy chef and author Anthony Bourdain says the duck and goose advocates are chickens. Here's some Q&A from a wide-ranging interview with the Miami New Times:

Q:You've made fun of anti-foie gras activists who object to force-feeding.

A: I don't think it's funny what they've done to terrorize chefs and their families, nor the fact that they've been winning the day. I'm quite certain that in our lifetime we'll see the last of it [foie gras] in this country. I mean, who's going to step up and defend it?

Q: How would you defend it?

A: It's good. It's a tradition stretching back to Roman times. I know how I'd like to defend those who are videotaping the wives and children of chefs, from their back yards, and using the videotapes and threatening phone calls to coerce these chefs into taking foie gras off their menus: I'd like to beat them upside the head with a f****** board. You'll notice these chickens**** don't go and try to break up organized dog-fighting rings in Oakland and East LA. Why? You know, they might get hurt.

Love your passion, Tony, but ixnay on the board-beatings. And I think you're being a bit pessimistic. I don't see many or perhaps even any other states following California's lead and banning the manufacture and sale of foie gras. Production in the U.S. is limited to two farms, anyway. It mostly comes from elsewhere. And there's always mail order.

Some restaurants will knuckle under, some won't. The foie gras battle hasn't really come to Seattle yet, but it's only a matter of time. I welcome such protests: they do about as much for the American Left as cavils against "gay-friendly" Sponge Bob and Tinky-Winky cartoon characters do for conservatives.

I know where I'm headed on my next date night with my wife: a new restaurant in Seattle named Crush. And for the opening course: pear-endive stuffing and huckleberries with Hudson Valley foie gras.

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at February 28, 2005 10:09 AM

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