Love Those Goose Livers: Philadelphia's Best Foie Gras
Whereas Mitch Hedberg was against picketing but didn't know how to show it, the MenuPages Blog is more inventive. Editor Neal Ungerleider takes a stand against animal rights picketers in Philadelphia by publishing his
guide to the city's best foie gras.
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9 Comments:
I think this should read:
"Whereas Mitch Hedberg was against picketing but didn't know how to show it..."
chiff0nade at 3:16PM on 05/21/08
@chiff0nade: Sorry about that--the sentence has been edited!
roboppy at 3:27PM on 05/21/08
Quite a few places in Philly serve foie but don't advertise it on their menus, so as not to attract the 'Hugs for Puppies' nuts. So if you've heard a place has a good foie dish but it doesn't appear on the menu, ask.
Buckethead at 4:25PM on 05/21/08
What a worthy cause - supporting foie gras. Yes, let's force feed animals until their livers burst so we can stuff ourselves with a high cholesterol treat, then accuse people who care about animals of being "Hugs for Puppies nuts."
What a worthy crowd foie gras attracts.
Dee711 at 11:16PM on 05/21/08
RE: Dee711
If the ducks' livers actually burst we couldn't eat them! I love how anti-foie gras people simply MAKE UP things about it that are absolutely FALSE. The livers bursting is only second to the fallacious claims that the livers of foie gras ducks are diseased. Once again, it wouldn't taste good if they were diseased and we wouldn't eat them.
People fail to understand that ducks have a drastically different anatomical make-up than humans/mammals do. Duck livers have evolved to store lots of fat (something human livers, regrettably, cannot do) in preparation for migration. They aren't sick or diseased, they are just engorged (admittedly artificially) as they would be if the duck were migrating and had plentiful access to food.
Furthermore, the force-feeding process is far less painful/cruel to ducks than it would be to humans. Ducks' throats are coated to the point that many ducks can swallow entire fish whole (and alive) so that the actual act of stuffing a feeding tube down a duck's throat is relatively painless (not to mention only 2 or 3 seconds long). Also, ducks breathe through a hole in their tongue/beak, which is exposed to the air during the force-feeding process allowing them to breathe the entire time.
The thing is that anti-foie gras activists attack it because it is an easy target that allows people to falsely anthropomorphize ducks/make up facts about them because no one knows anything about foie gras/ unite people against an ostensibly elitist product that most Americans have never tried/nor care about. Their real target is getting rid of meat consumption in general (particularly the FAR MORE CRUEL factory farms where most of this nation's meat comes from) and they choose foie gras because its an easy visceral thing to get people to warm up to them.
chasgoose at 2:20AM on 05/22/08
re: Chasgoose
Yes, dear, I know the livers don't actually burst. I was making a point.
But you keep right on deluding yourself that the ducks or geese are not suffering, so you can continue to stuff yourself. Funny how you had to post such a long, rambling argument to try to justify this cruel practice to yourself.
Factory farms are cruel - but so is foie gras. The cruelty of factory farming does not make the practice of force-feeding to make foie gras any less heinous. Foie gras is extremely cruel to animals. That is why some cities - such as Chicago - have banned it altogether. I hope you learn to have some compassion for the suffering of other creatures, and realize that that is far more important than your high-cholesterol treat.
Dee711 at 11:49PM on 05/22/08
Chasgoose does not make a long, rambling argument but gives an excellent refutation of the many false arguments used by anti foie gras activists. The visceral opposition to force-feeding does indeed come more from anthropomorphizing ducks (and not knowing a thing about duck physiology).
The Chicago ban has been reversed - the original "ban" was smuggled into a larger bill by an anti foie gras zealot and most who voted for the "ban" did not know about it until after the vote. After much deserved ridicule, the dumb stunt was finally reversed (as if in cities like Chicago and Philadelphia, such a measure even deserves to be among the first 10,000 items on the city's agenda).
epices6 at 12:23AM on 05/23/08
re: epices6
"anthropomorphize" - to attribute human characteristics to ...
You are ignorant. There is no need to attribute human characteristics to geese or ducks to acknowledge that they are suffering. Geese and ducks suffer and feel, as geese and ducks.
It is a pervasive myth among gluttons such as yourself that only humans have feelings. You subscribe to this myth to justify your own gluttony. It is sad you have chosen gluttony over awareness.
I am so sorry for you. You obviously have no ability to empathize with non-human creatures. Well, here's a newsflash - they have feelings also. Obviously it is only you who is ignorant about duck physiology. Why don't you go back to school and take a class on animal physiology? Then you will understand that you are condoning the infliction of extreme cruelty and suffering on non-human creatures, all in the name of gluttony and greed.
There is something very wrong with people who have a complete lack of empathy for the suffering of animals. You people are in complete denial.
Dee711 at 5:43AM on 05/23/08
@Dee711
I appreciate your spirited response in defense of stopping gavage (force feeding) of ducks/geese. In objective studies, this practice was shown to be detrimental to the health of the birds, leading to early death and active avoidance of the feeding practice by ducks and geese.
While the overall results of this practice are negative, the report of the European Union's Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare on Welfare Aspects of the Production of Foie Gras in Ducks and Geese stated that "there is no 'conclusive' scientific evidence on the aversive nature of force feeding", and that evidence of injury is "small." "The EU committee examined several experiments carried out by INRA (Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique) to detect pain or distress by looking at blood hormones, and found that no definite conclusions can be drawn from these studies." (quoted from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foie_gras_controversy).
I accept that I am ignorant and possibly a glutton but I also DO empathize with non-human creatures (as a middle-sized mammal, I do not trumpet human exceptionalism too much) and am a proponent of raising animals humanely. For that last reason, I feel that fighting the cruelty of gigantic feed lots, horrific pig farms, and torturous chicken pens is a more urgent cause than the fixation on gavage and foie gras. Just an opinion. Does this mean that I lack "empathy for the suffering of animals"? I do not.
Best of luck in your fight for animal rights.
epices6 at 11:10PM on 05/23/08