December 15, 2005--Let Them Eat Prunes
As we approach the Eating Season and begin to think about Christmas, New Years, Hanukah, and Kwanza dinners, if we can’t any longer so easily get our hands on the very best caviar from the Caspian Sea (all the sturgeon there have either been poached out or died from pollution), thoughts turn, not to Sugar Plums, but to Foie Gras.
That is unless you live in Israel or California where Foie is either illegal or about to be. Not for health reasons (it’s all cholesterol) but rather out of concern for the ducks and geese that are literally forced to produce it. As usual, the NY Times is on top of the story and so am I since it involves the French (as well as the geese), one on my on-going interests (see full article linked below).
You do know how Foie Gras is produced? By force-feeding. Via a process called gavage, the birds have a pipe shoved down their gullets several times a day through which blenderized corn is pumped. It gets the job done—within 18 weeks of gavage a typical goose will weigh six times what he or she weighed when this all began and his/her liver is ready to be removed and turned into the delicacy we can’t get enough of at this time of year.
From this you can see why people have been successful in getting a number of governments to pass legislation to stop this practice or curtail the import and consumption of this special holiday treat. If you can believe it, the anti-Foie Gras wave of protest has even reached France. Brigitte Bardot has been in the forefront of protesting this practice as well as the clubbing to death of baby seals. She and others have been so effective in raising consciousness about gavage that the French Assembly, under pressure from the FG producers, has passed legislation that declared Foie Gras a “cultural and gastronomic patrimony.” Indeed.
If you think this is just about patrimony, think again. We’re talking Big Euros here. France produces about 75 percent of the world’s FG supply, 17,500 tons a year which generates 1.5 billion Euros and provides 130,000 gavage-related jobs. Considering the unemployment situation in France, do we want to see these 130,000 gavagers tossed onto the dole along with all the Algerians and Moroccans?
When the state of California passed a law to forbid the production and sale of Foie Gras after 2012 (which is courageous since California has its own gavage business going on), a Monsieur Lacriox-Dubarry (I don’t think a relative of the frock designer Christian Lacroix), whose family has been in the FG business since 1908 (newcomers), said disdainfully of our West Coast neighbors, “They can eat prunes.”
Now just you wait a minute, do you know how prunes are produced? Check Brigitte’s Website. She’s at long last also moving on to do something about that disgraceful situation.
That is unless you live in Israel or California where Foie is either illegal or about to be. Not for health reasons (it’s all cholesterol) but rather out of concern for the ducks and geese that are literally forced to produce it. As usual, the NY Times is on top of the story and so am I since it involves the French (as well as the geese), one on my on-going interests (see full article linked below).
You do know how Foie Gras is produced? By force-feeding. Via a process called gavage, the birds have a pipe shoved down their gullets several times a day through which blenderized corn is pumped. It gets the job done—within 18 weeks of gavage a typical goose will weigh six times what he or she weighed when this all began and his/her liver is ready to be removed and turned into the delicacy we can’t get enough of at this time of year.
From this you can see why people have been successful in getting a number of governments to pass legislation to stop this practice or curtail the import and consumption of this special holiday treat. If you can believe it, the anti-Foie Gras wave of protest has even reached France. Brigitte Bardot has been in the forefront of protesting this practice as well as the clubbing to death of baby seals. She and others have been so effective in raising consciousness about gavage that the French Assembly, under pressure from the FG producers, has passed legislation that declared Foie Gras a “cultural and gastronomic patrimony.” Indeed.
If you think this is just about patrimony, think again. We’re talking Big Euros here. France produces about 75 percent of the world’s FG supply, 17,500 tons a year which generates 1.5 billion Euros and provides 130,000 gavage-related jobs. Considering the unemployment situation in France, do we want to see these 130,000 gavagers tossed onto the dole along with all the Algerians and Moroccans?
When the state of California passed a law to forbid the production and sale of Foie Gras after 2012 (which is courageous since California has its own gavage business going on), a Monsieur Lacriox-Dubarry (I don’t think a relative of the frock designer Christian Lacroix), whose family has been in the FG business since 1908 (newcomers), said disdainfully of our West Coast neighbors, “They can eat prunes.”
Now just you wait a minute, do you know how prunes are produced? Check Brigitte’s Website. She’s at long last also moving on to do something about that disgraceful situation.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
12:08 PM
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