Canadian Culinary Festival Takes Foie Gras Off the Menu

by Annie Hartnett · 2011-01-14 16:00:00 UTC
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Good news to all the mighty ducks in Canada: Montreal chef Martin Picard will no longer be serving foie gras at the Feburary 4th Winterlude dinner. In fact, Chef Picard won't be serving dinner at all, having chickened out from the "culinary event of the year" after he was asked by Winterlude organizers to cook without his signature foie gras poutine.

Tickets went for $125 a pop for the event to be held at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, and organizers were worried the opening gala would be marred by animal rights protests. Well, there's certainly nothing civilized about devouring the liver of force-fed ducks and geese, but when Chef Picard was asked to change his menu, he quit in a huff.

To be fair, Winterlude organizers knew that Picard would be serving foie gras when they hired him, as his restaurants reportedly serve more foie gras than any other dining room in North America. What they didn't anticipate was the outcry from animal activists, many of whom showed up to protest a December 14th Winterlude news conference. 

So Winterlude caved to the compassionate pressure. "We all agreed that we could present this menu without foie gras," said Lucie Caron, a spokesperson for the event. The show will go on without Picard as well, since he has been promptly replaced by another celebrity chef, Michael Smith.

The entire Canadian foie gras industry is located in Quebec, where Chef Picard hails from. Last year, the Global Action Network, in collaboration with Farm Sanctuary, investigated Quebec's largest foie gras farm, and uncovered vicious cruelty towards ducks and geese.

Down on the foie gras farm, birds are kept intensively crammed together, often in filthy conditions. In order to create the foie gras, or "fatty liver," a metal feeding tube is jammed down the throats of ducks and geese several times daily, pumping grain and fat into their stomachs. The birds are kept in tiny metal cages for the last weeks of their sad lives.

Sign the petition to help put an end to the Canadian foie gras industry.

Photo Credit: skeddy in NYC

Annie Hartnett is a writer and animal advocate who has worked for several wildlife rehabilitation centers and environmental programs.

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