Keefer's does a fantastic foie gras appetizer, complete with a sip of Sauternes.

Not that it adds much to the debate, but here's the foie gras processing facilty that I referred to upthread:

What puzzles me is why some creative Francophile biochemist hasn't come up w/ a concoction that suppresses the hormone/enzyme/whatever that makes the geese stop eating.

Would it still be torture if they just fattened themselves up w/o the help of a steel tube ? I believe the same sort of thing is already done for lots of other animals.

Rockit does a Kobe burger with foie gras.

Rockit Bar and Grill
22 W. Hubbard St., Chicago
http://www.rockitbarandgrill.com
312-645-6000

LionRock wrote:Yes - I haven't been to La Sardine, but I've had some nice basic FG preparations at The Red Rooster, Le Bouchon, Bistro Campagne and (I think) Kiki's.

I've now made an appoinment with my optometrist, and had to wipe my coffee from my monitor because on first read I saw The Red Lobster Ill now retire back into my hole in shame.

Flip

Christopher Gordon wrote:Chicago foie gras files:
A New Year's prix fixe a couple years back @ Wicker Park's Absinthe:
best dish by far: the seared foie gras with Door County cherry reduction.

someone confirm Cafe Absinthe is not closed down? i drove by a few nites ago and couldn't tell from all the scaffolding, etc.

Flip wrote:

LionRock wrote:Yes - I haven't been to La Sardine, but I've had some nice basic FG preparations at The Red Rooster, Le Bouchon, Bistro Campagne and (I think) Kiki's.

I've now made an appoinment with my optometrist, and had to wipe my coffee from my monitor because on first read I saw The Red Lobster Ill now retire back into my hole in shame.

Flip

Ha ha ha.

I'm sure that a nice piece of seared foie would be a perfect pairing with a Lobster-ita

TonyC wrote:

Christopher Gordon wrote:Chicago foie gras files:
A New Year's prix fixe a couple years back @ Wicker Park's Absinthe:
best dish by far: the seared foie gras with Door County cherry reduction.

someone confirm Cafe Absinthe is not closed down? i drove by a few nites ago and couldn't tell from all the scaffolding, etc.

CA is still open, it's borderline next door that is undergoing a total gutting. I'm not sure what's going to be there in its place.

I don't imagine they still do this (it was three years ago, with a different chef), but the best foie gras preparation I've ever had was at Avenues. This was a piece of John Dory fish with a foie gras topping. I remember when I read the menu description thinking, yech! As often happens to me, I was proved very, very wrong! It was heaven on a plate. (And this was the same dinner where I was served a same-day scallop the size of my fist, which would have been the show-stealer in almost any other meal imaginable).

Janet C. wrote:Update on the ban:



When I met David Rosengarten at a Spice House event last year and asked him his views on the topic, he said that all he knows is that when he visited a foie gras farm and the farmer went out to feed the ducks, they all came running and willingly opened their mouths to be fed.

Sounds like Washington, D.C., where when the registered lobbyists come out all the politicians come running with their mouths willingly wide open to be fed.

nr706 wrote:

polster wrote:I cant qoute a study of the top of my head that shows what % of people believe foie gras production as cruel. What I can tell you is in American society we elect our leaders (politicians) that speak for the rest of society by creating laws. So in turn our politicians who vote for bans on foie gras are the majority rule.

If you dont like that policy then try to elect someone who has the same views as you. Just like right wing conservatives elect individuals that would like to abolish abortion or gay rights.

I have to admit, I'm enjoying this in a strange way. I've never before seen people who want to have the option of consuming foie gras equated with those who would like to abolish abortion or gay rights.

Wow, this is so entertainingly strange. Most people that know me think of me as rather liberal (I know my dad that sets his clock by what time Rush comes on the radio thinks I'm just thisclose to Commie ). And now I find that - because I like foie gras - I'm not just anti-choice I'm also a gay-basher. Who knew? Oh the shame, the shame - once this comes out I have so many friends - or soon to be ex-friends - that will say "Gosh, I never would have guessed."

And anytime Polster wants to respond to the first 2 requests to post the links to objective 3rd party research showing how foie gras production is torture - well, feel free to step up to the plate, or feel free to keep dodging the question and post these bizarre diatribes more typically scripted by Ann Coulter's writers. To steal from MickeyD's . . . I'm lovin' it!

polster wrote:
Again if you do not like this policy then you should vote for someone who agrees with you or travel to a state or country where foie gras is legal.

Surprise! I already live in a state where it's legal.

nick.kokonas wrote:Does anyone know what the proposed sanction is for serving foie gras? Is it a misdemeanor ticket or -- ahem -- a felony?

I can only imagine that if it is a ticket offense akin to a parking ticket that 99% of bistros and top end restaurants will simply go on serving it "off menu".

I look forward to the BYOL restaurants, with a nominal 'organ' fee.

Apres foie gras, le deluge.

Ryanj wrote:And about the horsemeatr issue. We are one of the two states, Texas the other, where it is legal to slaughter horse and eat it. It was the origanal tartar meat, and in France, the finest butcher shops displayed a golden horse above the doorway to let them know the quality of their meat was of high standards. I've never had horse, although I have been offered it from one of my purveyors. If I knew I could sell it, I might run it as a special, but my guess is it probably would not taste great.

slightly off-topic(well, on topic re: horse)

I highly recommend Georges Franju's beautifully-shot short documentary of a French slaughterhouse; Les Sang des Betes. It's available on the Criterion edition of his Les Yeux sans Visage.

I know I'm late to the discussion, but I have a few points, many I know have been made before. I am both heartened and disappointed by the foie gras debate, at the same time. Kind of like my reaction to a lot of restaurants.

I am genuinely heartened that so many people are taking a closer look at where their food comes from, and asking the question if this is how we should raise food that we eat.

But I am also disappointed that for many people they are not asking this question at all of the food they eat, just what a relatively few affluent people eat. Surely if they were concerned for the fair treatment of the greatest number of animals raised for slaughter, they would look at the millions of chickens around the world, rather than a much smaller number of geese. The focus on fois gras seems misplaced, but why?

Maybe it's because they don't eat foie gras, and a change without any sacrifice is easier to make. Maybe it's because they see it as a class struggle, and view foie gras as the Hummer of the culinary world.

Either way, the foie gras question, limited only to foie gras without looking at the whole picture of food production seems much too arbitrary. If we're gonna do it, let's talk about all of our practices, and not just one. Celebrating a ban on foie gras with mass produced chicken and veal seems hypocritical to me.

As a card-carrying Neiman Marxist (VISA card, to be specific), I'm in complete support of the revolution desipte my weakness for outrageously expensive meals and organ meat that melts like butter.

Some of the early remarks here have been a little classist in their disdain for stupid politicians who aren't high-cultured enough to even pronounce the luxuries that they propose to ban. The problem isn't that they are vulgar barbarians deeply lacking the finer sensibilities of the bourgeoisie but rather, they are shameless political opportunists who offer this type of legislation that merely parades as a populist triumph while they continue to screw over the working class in every way that really matters -- education, housing, health care, employment. This is the fundamental hypocrisy that's so mind-blowing and it's insulting to think that the working poor actually fall for this garbage when, as others have pointedly stated, there are more pressing issues at hand.

Now, does anyone know where I line up for re-education camp?

Okay, as funny as it is to be suggesting that someone called Trotsky is getting too political here, I think it's getting too political here when we leave the point of "politicians are wasting time on silly demagoguery" and start enunciating an implicit political platform for what they should be doing. That's not this board.

(By the way, I'm reminded of an apocryphal but believable story. The Austro-Hungarian empire had spies in every cafe full of radicals furiously debating with each other and writing pamphlets no one would read. One intelligence service muckety-muck is talking to another about the prospect of revolution and the other finally sneers, pointing to a typical useless young cafe hanger-outer with frizzy hair and beard, "And who is going to lead this revolution, Herr Trotsky over there?" I think of this every time I go to the Starbucks in Wicker Park....)

I'm not sure if anyone has said this already but the fact that someone vandalized Cyrano's just because Chef Didier shared his views on this issue is abominable. To the people who did that I say grow up and grow a set.

LTH,

Please note we are one (more) politically charged post away from this thread being locked.

Please keep in mind LTHForum is a "culinary chat site"

Direct from LTHForum Posting Guidelines

- Sometimes food conversations have political or religious implications. We don't want to stifle talk that brings in that larger world, but there comes a point where a discussion leaves the road of culinary chat and takes off for a completely different destination--at which point it belongs on a completely different board. So here's a pocket guide:
--Talking about a mayor who cooks killer waffles is good.
--Talking about a mayor who kills waffle cookers is starting to drift.
--Talking about a mayor who waffles on killings in Cook County is off-topic.

Enjoy,
Gary

There's NO WAY this disgusting procedure should be banned.

But for Chefs (or more often restauranteurs) to say - "I have to serve it it's not up to me it's up to what the customer wants" I say:

I go to restaurants to have chef's tell me what they want me to eat all the time. I go back when I appreciate their ideas and suggestions. If the government doesn't decide and the chefs don't decide and it's up to the consumer at the white tablecloth restaurant isn't the compliance of the Chef a tacit form of approval?

If I had a restaurant I wouldn't serve it. I wouldn't serve veal either. Nor would I serve industrial farmed meat products at all.
(probably wouldn't survive as a restaurant)

Industrial farming is far more inhumane in so many more ways than Foie Gras. Unless it's bad foie gras.

(By the way, I'm reminded of an apocryphal but believable story. The Austro-Hungarian empire had spies in every cafe full of radicals furiously debating with each other and writing pamphlets no one would read. One intelligence service muckety-muck is talking to another about the prospect of revolution and the other finally sneers, pointing to a typical useless young cafe hanger-outer with frizzy hair and beard, "And who is going to lead this revolution, Herr Trotsky over there?" I think of this every time I go to the Starbucks in Wicker Park....)[/quote]


Like I told Stalin once, those hotels in Sibera had the worst menus I'd ever seen and the grooming products were just awful.

Lawmakers to Protect France's Foie Gras

Janet C. wrote:Though I've been enjoying this discussion, in an attempt to try to bring this back around to eating out in Chicago, can someone recommend which restaurants not of the 100 or so who signed some silly pledge that still offer foie gras on their menu? (We already know Cyrano's is one...)

For the record, I'm neither wealthy nor consider myself a member of the upper class, but I do happen to enjoy a good fatty duck liver every once and awhile, and all this talk is making me hungry for some.

Volo in Roscoe Village serves it:

http://www.volorestaurant.com/

Better snatch up this delicious culinary contraband while you can.

Good news according to today's Chicago Tribune. The vote on the foie gras ban has been delayed. A big thanks to Ed Burke!

I no longer eat veal or foie gras, so (by personal choice, and one which I would never even think about imposing upon another), so I would not suffer any loss or heartbreak if the ban were to be passed.

What DOES concern me mightily, though, is the precedent that it would establish: if a legislative body is allowed to ban foie gras, what foodstuff(s) might be next? Runny scrambled eggs? Rare hamburger? Traditional aoli or mayo or Caeser salad dressing (made with raw eggs)? Sashimi? Steak tartare?

It's best that this get nipped in the bud, and now.

Cheers,
Wade

waderoberts wrote:What DOES concern me mightily, though, is the precedent that it would establish: if a legislative body is allowed to ban foie gras, what foodstuff(s) might be next? Runny scrambled eggs? Rare hamburger?

A data point - when in North Carolina last December, I tried to order a rare hamburger ... I was told that, by law there, all hamburgers had to cooked at least to medium.

Perhaps we can reach a happy medium, whereby restaurants cannot purchase foie gras for resale, but we can bring our own ducks (B.Y.O.D), and be subjected to a quackage fee.

waderoberts wrote:What DOES concern me mightily, though, is the precedent that it would establish: if a legislative body is allowed to ban foie gras, what foodstuff(s) might be next? Runny scrambled eggs? Rare hamburger? Traditional aoli or mayo or Caeser salad dressing (made with raw eggs)? Sashimi? Steak tartare?

It's best that this get nipped in the bud, and now.

Cheers,
Wade

In 1992 New Jersey made it illegal to serve undercooked or raw eggs, punishable by fines from $25 to $100. I remember it well as I was baby-sitting a data center there while we ran parallel with our Chicago data center during the Great Chicago Flood. It was BIG NEWS then and received way more coverage than the meager morsels of info we tried to glean on the status of things back "in the Chi".

Eventually there was enough public criticism that they repealed the law.

Kman wrote:In 1992 New Jersey made it illegal to serve undercooked or raw eggs, punishable by fines from $25 to $100. I remember it well as I was baby-sitting a data center there while we ran parallel with our Chicago data center during the Great Chicago Flood. It was BIG NEWS then and received way more coverage than the meager morsels of info we tried to glean on the status of things back "in the Chi".

Eventually there was enough public criticism that they repealed the law.

But not before Modern Man released Eggs Like These.

Wade, I agree that this legislation is a slippery slope. I don't live in the city, but if I did, I would be peppering my alderman with protests.