State to Enforce Foie Gras Ban Next Year, Some Chefs Say They'll Break the Law

A dish with foie gras at Petrossian (Photo by foodforfel via the LAist Featured Photos pool)

California became the first state to ban foie gras back in 2004, but the law will not be enforced until next year. In July 2012, "duck liver cannot be served throughout the state if the duck was force fed, which is the method used by duck raisers for the liver to become fatty," explains AHN.

Not all chefs are on board with the ban, though, and several well-known culinarians working in California have spoken out about their plans to defy the ban.

Los Angeles-based chef Laurent Quenioux, who has been enjoying a special pop-up run at Downtown's Starry Kitchen, counts himself among the rebel forces: “When the ban comes in, we’re going to serve it every day. They can send me the foie gras police."

The ban, signed into law by then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, came to be after the urgings of several animal rights groups, who are now eager for the enforcement of the law to get underway.

Protesters frequently intervene when high-profile chefs serve foie gras locally, like in the case of Chef Ludo Lefebvre, who did a one-night LudoBites stand in Redondo Beach for his Ludo Bites America TV series and landed a glut of anti-foie gras folks on the restaurant's doorstep. (He told them basically to f-off, he loves foie gras and won't stop serving it.)

Though California enjoys pushing the edges of the culinary frontier, we also love to ban some boundary-pushing ingredients. Just this week a ban on shark fins--used in shark fin soup--was passed by the state senate and awaits Governor Jerry Brown's signature.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@laist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Lindsay William-Ross in Food on September 8, 2011 3:20 PM

Comments [rss]

savvysearch

Ridiculous. I have no qualms about eating foie gras and neither do many others. The state should not dictate morals or eating habits. Foie gras is a moral concern, it's not an ethical concern. It should be left up to individual restaurants and consumers to decide.

C

I am glad to see this enforced, do we need a food that comes at the expense of torture of a living creature, making their bodies sick so we can butcher them for a unnecessary self indulgent food item, next comes veal!!!

s k

Ha! I never thought of it as expensive luxury food (though it is very expensive), I always thought of it as very good food (and like most other ingredients, the lower quality tends to produce the most abuses that groups like PETA pretend exists only in the world of foie production and at all levels of production).

When the animal is stressed and in less-than-ideal conditions, the quality is worse. Look at Kobe beef tastes vs factory farmed meats, or kurobuta pork vs standard market pork. EVen Farmer's Market produce vs big produce. Also, they anthropomorphize the animal making us believe they have a similar digestive tract to us, when their system is far more elastic and allows for gorging (evolutionary trait attributed to feeding before winters). PETA also spins it into a class warfare thing (and an American vs French spin), when foie in France is fairly common and accessible. What's more elitist, supporting powerful rich businesses and their shareholders or small farmers?

I'm also a fan/patron of arts/classical music and those are considered luxury items and the struggle to keep educating/immersing kids in these activities is something i also consider the good fight.

Up_Against_The_Law

There is a lot going on in your post, but on a fundamental level, you realize this post did not mention PETA once. Right? And LAist loves to mention PETA. PETA doesn't control the California legislature (or any member of any legislative body). They are basically considered a fringe organization. Your criticism would make more sense if it was aimed at the legislators and a governor (or the literally millions of people they represent).

As far as PETA conflating better conditions with worse -- well, they're an animal rights organization. They disagree with the idea that any animal should be confined. It shouldn't be a surprise they don't encourage humane meat. But, suprisingly (for me), they actually do a lot of work and outreach to the meat industry to improve kill practices and confinement. So, in a sense, they factually don't conflate the two.

The bit about anthropomorphizing is a pretty standard and meaningless trope for people who get defensive about eating meat. Are you invoking Descarte here? Animals understand confinement and react to it in real way, which you seem to recognize with your "stressed out meat" argument. Are you really arguing that foie gras livers are a naturally occurrence from ducks' digestive track? If it does, you're in for a treat, because the ban only applies to ducks that are force fed. You get to have all the natural foie gras in the world, anthropomorphizing be damned.

s k

fixed for you "State to Enforce Stupid Foie Gras Ban Next Year, Some Chefs Say They'll Keep Fighting the Good Fight"

Up_Against_The_Law

There are a lot of "good fight[s]" out there, but no matter how one feels about the ethics of foie gras, I'm not sure how this qualifies as "the good fight." Good fight for an expensive luxury food? Are there related good fights for caviar and grey poupon? (community meetings with participants wearing monocles?)