Bourdain and Ruhlman on anti-foie legislation

And really these ducks aren’t doing anything that a porn star doesn’t do on a regular basis.

http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2006/10/05/ruhlman_bourdain_foie/index.html

Does anyone have a link to the bill in question? The only foie related bill I've seen on the NJ legislature's website bans production, not sale... and since there isn't any foie being produced in NJ, it seems like much ado about nothing.

Is anyone able to verify this? The only people I've seen talking about it are Bourdain and Ruhlman and people who picked it up from Bourdain and Ruhlman.

Try this. It's about as succinct a piece of legislative drafting as I've seen in a while. Succinct and...oh well, better not go there.

Gypsy Boy wrote:Try this. It's about as succinct a piece of legislative drafting as I've seen in a while. Succinct and...oh well, better not go there.

That's the one that bans production, but not sale. As far as I know there are no foie gras producers in NJ, since I think D'Artagnan is only a reseller of Hudson Valley and some French producers.

gleam wrote:
That's the one that bans production, but not sale. As far as I know there are no foie gras producers in NJ, since I think D'Artagnan is only a reseller of Hudson Valley and some French producers.

In the article, Bourdain points to a friend and collegue who would be directly affected because they produce foie gras in NJ...

https://www.dartagnan.com/index.asp

"Does anyone have a link to the bill in question?"

There is no evidence that such a bill exists; certainly, as you no doubt discovered, it isn't on the legislature's website. The Salon article simply states that an assemblyman has announced his intention to introduce such legislation. Not that he's done it. And, if we're lucky, sanity will return at some point during the drafting....

He mentions D'artangnan, and that's what his big fear is about, but I'm fairly certain D'Artagnan is merely a reseller of New York and French foie gras.

Am I wrong? I really don't think this will affect D'Artagnan in any way.

Edit: No, I'm not wrong:
Bill would have New Jersey join anti-foie gras campaign

AP wrote:The proposal has Ariane Daguin - a founding partner of D'Artagnan Inc., a Newark foie gras distributor that does $45 million in annual business and employs 112 people - worried. With 30 percent of its business tied to foie gras, D'Artagnan is the nation's top foie gras distributor.

Daguin said her company gets foie gras from Canada and two farms in New York that are among only three farms in the nation that produce it. The other farm is in California.

D'Artagnan distributes foie gras to 60 restaurants in New Jersey and many retailers, said Daguin, who noted Voss has proposed outlawing production that doesn't exist in New Jersey. She said the proposal may be a move toward banning sales of the fat-laden livers.

"It's a step in the wrong direction," Daguin said.

Edit again: Yeah, it does look like Panter is going to introduce another bill. It doesn't have a shot in hell, though, although the production bill will almost certainly pass.

Assemblyman Michael Panter, D-Monmouth, plans to introduce a second bill this week to ban the distribution and sale of foie gras, since it is not produced in New Jersey.

"I'm not naive to the effects it will have on business," said Panter, a vegetarian. "I think that the practices in place to produce foie gras are inhumane by any standard."

I am a huge fan of Bourdain's, and totally on the anti-banning side, but i don't like some of the arguments he's using. The fact that the Romans did something does not impress me; nor would the damage to any particular business by banning the practice if it were were actually wrong. It doesn't even really matter that much, in my opinion, that the motives for promoting a ban are generally self-serving and/or the reasons unexamined. Arguments about the actual practice in relation to other farming practices? Much more persuasive. Why throw in a bunch of stuff about "my good personal friend will go out of business?" I like that Bourdain makes stuff personal and does not always claim to be logical, but on this topic I think the anti-banning arguments need to be really rigorous.