Proposed Foie Gras Bill Ruffles Feathers in NYC Food Community
Somewhere in the bowels of a hipster Korean-fusion restaurant in Soho, a chef is preparing one of the most controversial dishes in the culinary world. When it arrives, it’s succulent and tender, almost gelatinous when cut. It is called foie gras, from the French for “fat liver,” and it is made by force-feeding corn to ducks or geese. When you bite into it, the meat almost dissolves over your tongue. Some consider it a grand food tradition, while others see it as a symbol of animal cruelty. Now New York City has to decide which side it’s on.
Last January, New York City Councilwoman Carlina Rivera introduced a bill that would ban restaurants from selling foie gras. The bill is still waiting to be voted on in City Council, but it has 28 sponsors and if it passes, hundreds of workers at one of the only foie gras farms in the country could lose their jobs.
“What’s pushing this councilwoman along is politics,” said Michael Ginor, Co-Founder of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, one of only three farms in the country that produce foie gras. “If they really cared about the process, they would come and visit the farm. This is about, am I going to get more votes by being the hero of animal rights activists?”
Jeremy Unger is the Communication Director for Councilwoman Rivera and said the Councilwoman is pursuing the bill to protect animals in the hope that it will end “an exceptionally cruel and inhumane practice that has been banned in a number of countries, states, and municipalities around the globe.”
Hudson Valley Foie Gras is in Ferndale, New York, and processes half a million Moulard ducks a year. Ginor said they sell to several hundred restaurants and chefs in New York City. To do this, they employ 400 workers, many of whom are from Central America.
“If this ban were to pass and we were to lose our biggest marketplace, then ultimately this farm would go out of business and these workers would lose their jobs,” said Ginor.
Three times a day for 20 days straight, a rubber hose one centimeter in diameter is dropped into the ducks’ beaks, releasing corn for ten seconds. Afterward, Ginor said, the ducks are kept in pens in groups of ten.
“We keep them in a nursery, in the same way a small child would be,” he said.
Not everyone agrees.
“Foie gras is by far the most inhumane, vile form of meat that I know of,” said Ben Williamson, Program Director at World Animal Protection USA.
“The level of pain and discomfort that birds raised on foie gras farms must endure cannot be justified for any fleeting moment of taste.”
But back at Soogil, the Korean-fusion restaurant that serves Hudson Valley foie gras, owner Soogil Lim said he orders four ducks a week.
“A regular liver is like this size,” said Lim, making a fist. “But a foie gras liver is like this,” he said, cupping his fingers into a ball.
Lim said he would obey the ban if it passes, but doesn’t understand why it would.
“If they ban foie gras, what will they ban next? Chicken, eggs, pork?”
