Faux gras

When it comes to real knowledge of food, wine and the restaurant business, I can't pretend to hold a candle to professionals like Andrew Morrison (aka the Urban Diner). I must, however, take issue with this recent defense of foie gras that he penned for the Westender.

Like Morrison, I can take or leave the stuff. Like Morrison, I agree that people should be allowed to consume what they please without the threat of interference by militantly puritanical busybodies. I just wish his argument was better.

Note: all italics below are mine.

Cruelty is a loaded word when it comes to consumption. It suggests guilt when there should be none. Killing a pig to slake malice or madness is surely cruel, but doing so for bacon is decidedly not.

The means of death are irrelevant as long as the animal is eaten. If we had to strangle a cow to make it taste better, we most certainly would.

It's a purely consequentialist argument and certainly a convenient one for someone in Morrison's line of work, but it's still specious reasoning. It's almost Catholic: by consuming the flesh, they sins are forgiven.

Morrison continues:

As long as an animal is killed for more than just its skin, fin, or fur, diners should be allowed, without let or hindrance, to consume it.

It's interesting to note the inclusion of fur in there, since there's ample parallels between fur and foie gras. Both fur-farmed animals and foie gras birds live short, nasty existences in often unspeakable conditions. In both cases, the end product is not in any way essential to survival. Rather, fur coats and foie gras are luxury items. Given that, it's hypocritical to defend one but reject the other.

In the end, robbing a few restaurants of fattened duck liver in this troubled day and age is like fighting raindrops in a terrifying monsoon.
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If (anti-foie gras activists Liberation BC) had cornered the market on ethics, they’d be concentrating on far more vital and immediate concerns, like saving creatures facing immediate extinction.

This is a classic false dilemma with a strawman mixed in. First, I'm not sure anti-foie gras activists would claim to have cornered the market on ethics. Second, whether or not you agree with their position or tactics, it's a fee country and what issues they choose to focus on is their prerogative. There's certainly nothing stopping anyone from lobbying against foie gras and for protection of endangered species. In fact, both share a common philosophical foundation which states how we treat animals is a measure of us as a society. Likewise, destroying vital habitat to build McManisons, hunting rare animals for sport or factory farming pigs, cows and ducks are different manifestations of the same hypercapitalist impulse for profit and self-gratification at all costs. Given that Morrison seems to be a big supporter of the burgeoning focus on local and organic ingredients, both of which include a strong ethical component, his defense of foie gras seems rather out of place.

The bottom line here is that it's possible to defend one's right to choose to eat what one wishes, but to still be conscious of the ethical implications of those choices.