A Canadian duck-farming trade organization, a New York producer of duck delicacies and a Los Angeles restaurant group have joined together in a lawsuit to strike down a new California law prohibiting the sale of foie gras.
The suit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles maintains the law, which outlaws force-feeding birds for the purpose of enlarging their livers and selling products from force-fed birds, is unconstitutional, vague and interferes with federal commerce laws.
Michael Tenenbaum, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he also plans to ask the court for a preliminary injunction, which would freeze the law until it can be hashed out in court. He said the request would be made soon, but gave no further details.
The foie gras ban went into effect Sunday. More: at SFGate
Showing posts with label Foie Gras. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foie Gras. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Minn. foie gras producer challenges notion that process is cruel
by Elizabeth Baier, Minnesota Public Radio
October 10, 2011
Caledonia, Minn. — On a winding road in southeastern Minnesota, there's a 60-acre farm unlike any other in the Midwest.
Au Bon Canard, or "good duck" in French, is where Christian Gasset raises ducks to produce a culinary delicacy: foie gras, or fattened duck liver. The Au Bon Canard duck livers — along with breasts, wings and other parts — end up on plates of the most celebrated restaurants in the Upper Midwest.
Inside a barn on Gasset's farm on a recent morning, four long wooden pens each held about 16 adult male ducks, with room for the ducks to walk around. Gasset and his wife, Liz Gibson-Gasset, moved slowly to keep the birds calm.
"With foie gras, the really big thing is you can't have a good product if you're not treating your ducks well," she said. "If they're unhappy, if they're stressed out, if anything's wrong with their living conditions, you don't get a good product."
But as much as the Gassets try to keep their birds content, how they and other foie gras producers feed ducks makes the product controversial. Animal rights activists say the process used to fatten the ducks' livers amounts to animal torture.
The Gassets, who started their business in 2004, raise and slaughter about 2,100 males ducks a year, a fraction of what their competitors in New York and California produce. The birds on their farm are Mullard ducks, a cross between Pekins and Muscovies. They arrived from California as day-old chicks.
After living the first few weeks in a temperature-controlled room, they spend another eight weeks or so outdoors, eating a mixture of corn, bugs and grass before going into the barn for controlled feedings.
Twice a day for the last two weeks of a duck's life, Gasset tilts the bird's head back, inserts an eight-inch funnel into its throat and pours three-quarters of a pound of freshly cooked kettle corn down the duck's esophagus.
The corn goes into a small organ called the crop, which Gasset massages for a few seconds as he pulls the funnel out. It takes him seven seconds to feed each bird.
Gasset said controlling the amount of corn the duck ingests during the last two weeks of its life plumps its liver up to 10 times its normal size — making it foie gras. As the liver's color changes from black to yellow, its texture becomes creamy, like butter.
Gasset said the process is meant to mimic the way a bird puts on weight before fall migration, even though the ducks never migrate. To him, many of those who criticize the process simply don't want anyone to eat meat and see foie gras as an easy target.
"It's such a small production and you kind of target the rich people, because it's a really extremely expensive product at the end," he said.
Full story and video at link
October 10, 2011
Caledonia, Minn. — On a winding road in southeastern Minnesota, there's a 60-acre farm unlike any other in the Midwest.
Au Bon Canard, or "good duck" in French, is where Christian Gasset raises ducks to produce a culinary delicacy: foie gras, or fattened duck liver. The Au Bon Canard duck livers — along with breasts, wings and other parts — end up on plates of the most celebrated restaurants in the Upper Midwest.
Inside a barn on Gasset's farm on a recent morning, four long wooden pens each held about 16 adult male ducks, with room for the ducks to walk around. Gasset and his wife, Liz Gibson-Gasset, moved slowly to keep the birds calm.
"With foie gras, the really big thing is you can't have a good product if you're not treating your ducks well," she said. "If they're unhappy, if they're stressed out, if anything's wrong with their living conditions, you don't get a good product."
But as much as the Gassets try to keep their birds content, how they and other foie gras producers feed ducks makes the product controversial. Animal rights activists say the process used to fatten the ducks' livers amounts to animal torture.
The Gassets, who started their business in 2004, raise and slaughter about 2,100 males ducks a year, a fraction of what their competitors in New York and California produce. The birds on their farm are Mullard ducks, a cross between Pekins and Muscovies. They arrived from California as day-old chicks.
After living the first few weeks in a temperature-controlled room, they spend another eight weeks or so outdoors, eating a mixture of corn, bugs and grass before going into the barn for controlled feedings.
Twice a day for the last two weeks of a duck's life, Gasset tilts the bird's head back, inserts an eight-inch funnel into its throat and pours three-quarters of a pound of freshly cooked kettle corn down the duck's esophagus.
The corn goes into a small organ called the crop, which Gasset massages for a few seconds as he pulls the funnel out. It takes him seven seconds to feed each bird.
Gasset said controlling the amount of corn the duck ingests during the last two weeks of its life plumps its liver up to 10 times its normal size — making it foie gras. As the liver's color changes from black to yellow, its texture becomes creamy, like butter.
Gasset said the process is meant to mimic the way a bird puts on weight before fall migration, even though the ducks never migrate. To him, many of those who criticize the process simply don't want anyone to eat meat and see foie gras as an easy target.
"It's such a small production and you kind of target the rich people, because it's a really extremely expensive product at the end," he said.
Full story and video at link
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
California Foie Gras ban goes into effect
The Artisan Farmers Alliance and intends to fight the California law.
Chef Gary Danko sears an inch-thick slice of duck liver in a small pan in the San Francisco restaurant where he earned a Michelin star until the meat develops a golden-brown shell.
The delicacy known by its French name, foie gras, is garnished with figs and champagne grapes, a variation on a dish he’s served since opening Restaurant Gary Danko near Fisherman’s Wharf in 1999.
“I sell probably 40 orders a night or more,” Danko said in an interview while salting the meat. “When the protesters are here, double that.”
The protesters are animal-rights advocates who say force- feeding ducks and geese to fatten their livers is cruel. Danko and other California chefs will have to remove foie gras from their menus in July, when the state becomes the first to ban the dish, under a 2004 law.
At issue is the method of feeding the birds, with a tube inserted in the esophagus.
“These birds have done nothing to deserve this fate of being force-fed several times a day,” Paul Shapiro, a spokesman for the Washington-based Humane Society of the United States, said in a telephone interview. “It’s an inhumane practice that should be relegated to the history books.”
Connoisseurs say the process mimics behavior in the wild, where the birds gorge themselves before migrating. Foie gras purveyors say the force-feeding causes no pain, and that opponents are trying to impose the values of vegetarians on everyone else. Full story
Chef Gary Danko sears an inch-thick slice of duck liver in a small pan in the San Francisco restaurant where he earned a Michelin star until the meat develops a golden-brown shell.
The delicacy known by its French name, foie gras, is garnished with figs and champagne grapes, a variation on a dish he’s served since opening Restaurant Gary Danko near Fisherman’s Wharf in 1999.
“I sell probably 40 orders a night or more,” Danko said in an interview while salting the meat. “When the protesters are here, double that.”
The protesters are animal-rights advocates who say force- feeding ducks and geese to fatten their livers is cruel. Danko and other California chefs will have to remove foie gras from their menus in July, when the state becomes the first to ban the dish, under a 2004 law.
At issue is the method of feeding the birds, with a tube inserted in the esophagus.
“These birds have done nothing to deserve this fate of being force-fed several times a day,” Paul Shapiro, a spokesman for the Washington-based Humane Society of the United States, said in a telephone interview. “It’s an inhumane practice that should be relegated to the history books.”
Connoisseurs say the process mimics behavior in the wild, where the birds gorge themselves before migrating. Foie gras purveyors say the force-feeding causes no pain, and that opponents are trying to impose the values of vegetarians on everyone else. Full story
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