Foie Gras Fracas: A French delicacy worth keeping or the worst form of animal cruelty?

In his small restaurant kitchen in downtown Portland, Pascal Sauton gently slices through a lump of jiggling, wet duck liver. This one weighs just over a pound. Shiny and yellow, it looks a lot like chocolate chip cookie dough-without the chips. When cooked, the liver will turn pinkish-brown.

This rich French delicacy known as foie gras (fwah grah) can be served sizzling hot, crispy on the outside with a melt-in-your-mouth middle. Or the way Sauton serves it-- as a cold, pate-like appetizer. Tonight he’s offering a foie gras and duck confit (leg meat cooked in fat) terrine. Two thin slices cost $14.00—more than any other appetizer on his menu.

But oh, so worth it, say customers. “It’s like eating silk,” says one woman after polishing off a plate of foie gras. “It’s like a really intense, savory butter,” observes another customer after taking his first bite.

Portlander Katie Stoll acquired a taste for foie gras while living in France— where it’s part of the traditional holiday meal. “I think it’s my favorite thing in the world,” says the 31-year old who, when not eating foie gras, works promoting Oregon wines.
But animal rights activists, veterinarians and even some state lawmakers say if Oregonians knew how this duck liver delicacy was produced, they’d be willing to give up the exquisite taste.

Foie Gras means “fatty liver” in French. The Europeans use geese, but in the U.S. foie gras is made from the liver of a specially bred Mulard duck — that’s been force-fed twice a day for two weeks to produce a liver six to ten times its normal size.

Restaurants in Oregon get their foie gras from farmers in New York and California who place pressurized feeding tubes down the duck’s neck and pump corn into their esophagus.

The farmers argue that the ducks ancestors gorged themselves before migrating---and, they say, they are just taking advantage of this “natural ability.” “It’s completely non-injurious and harmless,” says Guillermo Gonzalez, owner of Sonoma Foie Gras. “The ducks don’t suffer because they have no throat or gag reflex.”

But critics say force-feeding is abusive. Under natural conditions they say the duck’s liver never more than doubles in size. “If this happened naturally, in the wild, these birds would never be able to take-off or to migrate,” says Matt Rossell, a Portland activist with the California based group, In Defense of Animals. “At the tail end of this force-feeding process they can barely walk, let alone fly.”
Last year Rossell organized several protests in front of Portland restaurants serving foie gras. During the protests, he played a video showing images of dead ducks piled in trash cans, feed spilling out of their beaks, and live ducks so bloated they were unable to defend themselves against rats that were eating them alive.

These are the results of force-feeding, claims Rossell. One Portland chef was so disturbed by the images that he decided to visit the California farm to see for himself how the ducks were treated.

“I really did go with an open mind,” says Kenny Giambalvo, chef at Bluehour, a French Italian fine dining restaurant in the Pearl. “They say it was shot at Sonoma Farms, but nothing I saw in the video resembled Sonoma Farms.”

Giambalvo describes the feeding process as “calm, methodical and professional.” A worker steps into a pen with about ten ducks, sits on a stool and then grabs each duck one-by-one. He holds the duck steady between his knees and then glides the stainless steel tube down his esophagus. “He’s very careful,” says Giambalvo, “because if you bruise the duck they can’t be slaughtered or sold.”

“I don’t think it’s inhumane…what were doing is attaching our own emotions and what we would experience as comfort and pain and distress and projecting it onto a duck.”

Bluehour is among at least four Portland restaurants still listing foie gras on their menus. Since the protests started, four restaurants have taken it off the menu, but two of them still serve it if customers ask. Two more have stopped serving it altogether. Greg Higgins, who owns Higgins restaurant downtown, says he disagrees with the protestors tactics, but did agree to stop selling foie gras. “We have a very aggressive stance on sustainable issues,” says Higgins. “The bottom line is if you continue the force-feeding process in those animals for another two weeks they would die from a ruptured liver.” Higgins says he personally likes the taste of foie gras, but can’t justify serving it as a humanely raised meat product.

Pascal Sauton, the owner of the downtown bistro, Carafe, takes a different view. Last year foie gras wasn’t even on his menu. The chubby Frenchman with a charming smile says he only added it six months ago to protest the protestors. “If I stop selling foie gras to make them happy they’ll be back a year from now and tell me not to sell veal and then chicken, and then pork.”

But now the protestors are the least of Sauton’s worries. A much more powerful lobby--- including the Oregon Veterinary Medical Association and the Humane Society of the United States-- is lining up behind a bill that would outlaw the selling of foie gras in Oregon. ( The bill also makes forcefeeding a crime, but there are no foie gras farms in the state.)

“To me, putting long plastic or metal tubes, shoving them down the throats of ducks or geese, there’s not a humane way to do that,” says Kelly Peterson,

a Portland based lobbyist with HSUS. Peterson says Oregon should follow the lead of California and 15 European countries that have outlawed forcefeeding. “This is all for a luxury item, a pate to spread on bread. It’s one French tradition we don’t need in the U.S.”

California’s ban on force-feeding doesn’t take effect for seven years. If Oregon’s bill passes, it would go into effect the beginning of next year— and would impose up to a $1000.00 fine on anyone selling foie gras or bringing it into the state for the purpose of selling it. Sanoma Foie Gras owner Guillermo Gonzalez flew to Oregon this spring to testify against the bill. Before lawmakers vote, he told them they should visit his California farm to see how the delicacy is produced. When asked how much money he would lose if the bill passes Gonzalez answered, “It’s not a matter of money, it’s a matter of principle, these people are defaming myself and my business.”

Proponents of the bill say you don’t have to visit a foie gras farm to take a stand against force-feeding ducks. “This is a bill about passion. It’s really the cruelest form of inhumane treatment of animals,” says Teddy Keizer---a legislative aide who convinced his boss, Senator Joanne Verger to sponsor the legislation. After seeing media reports and researching the issue Keizer was convinced that force-feeding should be outlawed. It would have a small economic impact in Oregon, says Keizer, because there are no foie gras farms and only a handful of restaurants that serve it.

At press time Oregon lawmakers were still discussing the bill. What will restaurants do if it does pass? “What can we do?” says Pascal Sauton. Then he smiles and whispers something about Prohibition and a foie gras speakeasy.

Bottom Line: “To me, putting long plastic or metal tubes, shoving them down the throats of ducks or geese, there’s not a humane way to do that, says Kelly Peterson, a Portland based lobbyist with the Humane Society of the U-S.

Force-feeding inhumane
Extreme animal cruelty
Livers enlarge 6-10 times normal size
15 European countries ban force-feeding

Bottom Line: “What were doing is attaching our own emotions and what we would experience as comfort and pain and distress and projecting it onto a duck.” Kenny Giambalvo, chef Bluehour

Ducks don’t suffer
They gorge themselves in the wild
Part of fine-dining experience
It’s so yummy