Loading ...Foie Gras Week Kicks Off Friday
Posted by Foobooz on March 10th, 2009
Whether you’re a foie gras enthusiast or just foie-curious you’ll be excited to learn that Foie Gras Week 2009 kicks off Friday with more than 15 restaurants taking part. Participating restaurants will be offering special $5 foie gras plates.
Full list of participants after the jump.
- Alfa
- Bar Ferdinand
- Bibou
- Bistrot la Minette
- Caribou Cafe
- Izumi
- London Grill
- Meme
- Mercato
- Positano Coast
- Saute
- Time
- Valanni
- Vintage
- Xochitl
- Zinc
- ZoT
Foie Gras Week 2009 [Official Site]
Related Tags: Foie-Gras
March 10th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
can anyone say foie gras and beer, MMMM
March 10th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
my best foie gras experience in Philadelphia to date is Seared Foie Gras with Chocolate and Pineapple at Lacroix (when Levin was still there)
Can we get updates on each restaurant’s offering? Because I dont want to get “torchon” that I can buy online…
March 10th, 2009 at 8:32 pm
My best foie gras experience is when they cut your liver out and ate it.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:50 am
go pick on kfc or mcdonalds.
March 11th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Mcr–hugged a puppy recently?
March 11th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Xochitl is doing it, but ansill is not? weird.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Foie gras is disgusting. I will make sure not to patronize any restaurants that participate.
March 11th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Janet is disgusting. I will make sure not to patronize any restaurants that she does.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Yummy. Foie gras and beer’s fantastic, and this looks like a GREAT way to wind up Philly Beer Week. My hat’s off to these restaurateurs who are brave enough to stand up to squealing intimidation.
March 11th, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Rory, perhaps that is a question you should ask yourself, my friend. However, it’s nice to see that Matt has the mental sensibilities of a five year old child. I have a feeling he is similar to most foie gras eaters.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Mcr-actually yes. and her name is sophie and that has nothing to do with foie gras.
that you come into a post, made a one-liner and then got righteously condescending about another person who made a one-liner tells me a lot about you. and it’s generally not positive.
i have a feeling you are similar to most PETA extremists, my friend.
to be more serious–if you really are an anti-foie activist, perhaps you could explain why foie is a more important piece of the puzzle than agribusiness. It’s far less inhumane, far less destructive to the environment, and a far smaller industry. Why not protest at a McDonald’s that is not only feeding people bad and unhealthy food, but is also destroying the environment and all for the quick buck? There’s a simple class answer there: foie is of the elite and thuse a “low-hanging fruit”. It’s also not where this battle should be waged. Foie gras foodies and non-foie foodies alike should be able to come together to try to promote healthy and sustainable eating habits. Then we can argue about foie. But to start at foie is absurd. you’re honestly distancing yourself from the people most likely to become allies.
March 12th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Chuck Norris can de-vane an entire lobe of foie gras with his fist and punch-out hugs for puppies with the other.
March 13th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Well said rory, I am a pretty big advocate for animal rights and these Foie protester are the scum of the movement. They simply dont understand how Foie is made. Well guess what, an unhappy duck is grade C, a happy, healthy, stress free duck, Grade A.
As for Tyson Chicken, Butterball, and so on, well, you know the rap.
Mcr, Go raise hell in front of a Mcdonalds.
March 13th, 2009 at 9:49 am
Anyone know in what “area” Time’s offering its Foie Gras plate? I’d be keen on getting in on that if it’s available in the whiskey bar.
March 13th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
to each his own…i personally would like to give it a try.
March 16th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Time will serve you foie gras anywhere you like.
March 17th, 2009 at 11:40 am
To all who support foie gras:
Foie gras is one of the most sickening examples of humans using cruelty to get luxury. Frankly, I am appalled at the press that this year’s Foie Gras Week is receiving. Not only has The Inquirer run an article on Thursday, March 12, but Philadelphia Weekly & City Paper have run center page ads this past week, as well. I most certainly will not be setting foot in ANY of the restaurants participating in Foie Gras Week, regardless if they don’t usually carry it on their menus. Allow me to explain why.
The process used to fatten up the livers in ducks and geese is called “gavage”. It is force feeding them until their livers become diseased, cease to function and swell up to 10 times their normal size. People in the foie gras industry argue that ducks and geese do not have a gag reflex and that their necks are very flexible. Because of this, they say, the gavage process does not cause the bird discomfort when force feeding. In fact, because their necks are pliable, they are subject to wounds. The animals are force fed up to 3 times per day by inflexible tubes shoved down their throats, which at times, puncture their throats and cause them to bleed to death and suffer painful wounds. As much as four pounds of grain and fat is pumped into their stomachs while the bird desperately tries to get away. Internal organs are ruptured because of the intense pressure of the force feeding. One worker, at some farms, is responsible and expected to force feed up to 500 birds, 3 times per day and because of this rush, animals are roughly handled and left injured and suffering. Workers are often given monetary rewards for not “bursting” the bird. The birds live in unsanitary conditions either in a single wire cage or packed into sheds. The birds, more often than not, cannot walk because of their engorged livers and are reduced to propelling themselves by pushing with their wings. Sometimes, because of the stress, they pull out their feathers and cannibalize one another. This torture lasts 12-21 days. The birds that do survive the force feeding process are then slaughtered for their diseased livers.
Mr. Bernard Dehaene, the organizer of this week’s event states that “the foie gras industry had been unfairly portrayed as cruel”. There is undercover footage by the Humane Society of the United States at Somoma Foie Gras Farms, one of three foie gras farms in the U.S., that shows rats eating the flesh of live ducks who are too bloated and crippled to defend themselves. Dr. Ward Stone, a wildlife pathologist with the NY State Dept. of Environmental Conservation and Adjunct Professor at State Univ. of NY has on several occasions conducted post-mortems on ducks that died from force feeding, including ones from Hudson Valley Foie Gras Farms, the very same farm “giving away” the foie gras to Chefs of Choice. In September 2005 he writes, “…the short tortured lives of ducks raised for Foie Gras is well outside the norm of farm practice. Having seen the pathology that occurs from Foie Gras production, I strongly recommend that this practice be outlawed.”
If the foie gras industry is so uncruel, then why will California ban the sale and foie gras production by the year 2012? Why has the practice been outlawed in the U.K., Austria, Germany, The Czech Republic, Luxemborg, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark and Israel? Maybe Mr. Dehaene has been misinformed. Maybe he hasn’t watched the footage from inside one of these farms or even first-handedly watched the gavage process.
In Philly Inquirer’s article, Ms. Mackenzie Hilton states, “As chefs, we are not going to back down.” This is to make a point that she is not going to allow anyone to tell her what she can serve in her restaurant. She’s taking a stand. Celebrity chefs Wolfgang Puck and Albert Roux are against the use of foie gras. Roux has argued that foie gras should come with a warning so that “people know what’s being done to the animals.” Chicago local celebrity chef, Charlie Trotter, maintains the production of foie gras is “too cruel to be served” and stopped serving it in his eponymous restaurant. These chefs have found it important to discontinue use of foie gras because of the cruelty involved & yet, they are still very successful celebrity chefs and their restaurants are thriving even without the foie gras. You can bet your life that they were hammered by the animal’s rights activists too. They chose the right thing to do to make their point.
March 17th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
http://foiegrasweek.blogspot.com/2009/03/anthony-bourdain-visits-foie-gras-farm.html
Here’s footage from Hudson Valley Foie Gras during Anthony Bourdain’s visit.
You claim that “As much as four pounds of grain and fat is pumped into their stomachs while the bird desperately tries to get away.”
But you can clearly see that that is not the case in the video. It would also be nice for you to post links of your sources or to cite them at least. There are always two sides to a story and I’d love to be more informed.
Explain to me why California passed a ban on gay marriage and why they elected an Austrian bodybuilder as their governor… Sorry but California lost its credibility forever, at least to me.
http://www.villagevoice.com/content/printVersion/894706
This article was written by Sarah DiGregorio who watched that video from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, but she also went to visit the Hudson Valley Foie Gras Farm.
She concludes that “the fact that some industrial farms elsewhere are making foie gras in inhumane ways doesn’t mean that all foie gras production is inhumane. You can buy humanely raised chicken, or you can buy chicken that’s had a nasty, brutal life. The same goes for foie gras.”
I wont start on activists harassing customers and chefs at their own homes and will leave it at that…