Activists Used Valentines to Protest Foie Gras

Monday, February 14, 2005

The Animal Protection and Rescue League with In Defense of Animals sent a Valentine's Day card to French Laundry this week, featuring a photo from a foie gras production facility in France. It shows a caged duck being fed through a pipe -- the method by which foie gras, or fattened duck liver, is produced.

In September, members of IDA staged a demonstration in front of French Laundry, waving graphic images as customers arrived to eat at the upscale restaurant that takes reservations no more than 60 days in advance.

The card, addressed "to someone very special ... (and) especially cruel," will remind executive chef and owner Thomas Keller that his top rated restaurant will face a sustained anti-foie gras campaign for now and into the future, said Kristie Phelps, a program coordinator for IDA.

Several restaurants around the country also received a Valentine's Day card from IDA, according to Phelps.

Keller did not return phone calls for this article.

"Of course, there's going to be a minority of people who just don't care," said Phelps. "What we're trying to do is appeal to those people who do care to use their voices to end this cruel practice."

Dr. Elliot Katz, a veterinarian and president of IDA, said that making foie gras is inherently cruel because it involves force-feeding a duck until its liver swells to ten times its natural size.

The dish, which is widely served at restaurants in the Napa Valley, has its share of supporters. Most say that a duck is biologically adapted to store carbohydrates in its liver.

In 2004, the California legislature passed a law requiring the state's sole foie gras producer to phase out his practice of force feeding of ducks by 2012. Katz called the law's passage a success, but he pledged to fight people who try and serve it until that deadline expires.