Washington Post
Maryland Politics
GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Panel Airs Proposed Foie Gras Ban
By Lisa Rein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 5, 2008; Page B05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/04/AR2008030402696.html

Animal welfare groups took aim yesterday at one of the staples of
haute cuisine, the fatty livers of geese and ducks, known as foie
gras, whose production entails force-feeding the birds through a pipe
down their throats.

But what the enemies of foie gras called cruel, its purveyors called
safe and humane as they fought a proposed ban on the sale of the
traditional French delicacy in Maryland restaurants and specialty
shops.

The Senate's education, health and environment committee, accustomed
to debating global warming, septic systems and high-school dropout
rates, heard two hours of testimony on the durability of goose gullets
and whether a duck feels pain as its liver is fattened up.

Foie gras is not produced in Maryland, but many fine restaurants serve
it. Their chefs told lawmakers that banning it would eat into their
bottom lines and deprive diners of such dishes as Tournedos Rossini,
the signature seared filet mignon topped with duck liver and truffle
sauce at Aldo's Ristorante Italiano in Baltimore.

It looks as if foie gras connoisseurs can continue eating $36-a-pound
pat¿, at least for now. The bill's sponsor, committee Chairman Joan
Carter Conway (D-Baltimore), said it might be too far-reaching to pass
the General Assembly this year and that the question of cruelty needed
study.

Passions burned nevertheless. "This is an egregious practice," said
Julie Janovsky of Farm Sanctuary, a national group urging state
legislatures to get foie gras off the menu. After being force-fed
grain, "these ducks can't walk," she said. "No other animal is made
sicker before it is sent to slaughter."

Paul Shapiro of the Gaithersburg-based Humane Society of the United
States said foie gras lovers are eating "diseased organs" whose method
of production has "no place in a civilized society."

The animal rights groups said a ban would put Maryland in good
company. The production and sale of foie gras will end in California
in 2012 under a law passed in 2004. Chicago approved a ban in 2006.
Pope Benedict XVI and Prince Charles have denigrated foie gras, and
the celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck won't serve it. Whole Foods, the
gourmet grocery chain, no longer carries it.

But representatives of Maryland's restaurant industry said the enemies
of foie gras are wildly exaggerating.

"We are not in support of animal cruelty in any way," Melvin Thompson
of the Maryland Restaurant Association said. "But we don't think there
is any cruelty going on."

Thompson said a ban could send lawmakers down a slippery slope and end
in their outlawing many foods produced by farming practices that
animal rights groups oppose.

The owners of Hudson Valley Foie Gras in New York, one of the
country's three foie gras farms, testified that their Moulard ducks
appear happy and unperturbed by being force-fed, because their gullets
do not have gag reflexes.

The Maryland Agriculture Department opposes the bill because, as
written, it would apply not only to foie gras but also to food
products such as baby food, sausage and hot dogs that are made with
other parts of the force-bed birds. Testing every sausage or can of
baby food that comes into Maryland would be almost impossible,
officials said. Animal rights group suggested amendments to limit the
ban to goose and duck livers.