Foie gras Chicago

[Animal 0]

D'après ce qu'on peut lire dans cet article, il est interdit aux restaurateurs de vendre du foie gras, mais ils n'en ont que faire de la loi ...
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Let 'em eat foie gras, they declare

Almost 4 months after ban, a number of restaurants appear to be dishing up the delicacy with impunity

By Josh Noel
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 21, 2006



When the letter came from City Hall threatening punishment if he continued to serve foie gras at his North Side restaurant, Doug Sohn framed the warning and set it beside his cash register.
And he kept serving the fattened duck liver without a care.

"We displayed it proudly," said Sohn, owner of Hot Doug's, a gourmet sausage eatery where the daily special can include smoked pheasant topped with foie gras chunks. "My customers and myself enjoy foie gras."

Almost four months after an ordinance went into effect that forbids serving the rich delicacy, many chefs and restaurateurs are shrugging, if not thumbing their noses, at a law that has led to charges of an overly invasive City Council.

Several restaurants are so brazen, they list foie gras on their online menus.

While the city considers other ordinances to force restaurants to eliminate trans fats and disclose the nutritional information about items on its menus, it has barely pursued foie gras scofflaws.

The city has sent warning letters to nine restaurants believed to have served foie gras but issued no citations, Chicago Department of Public Health spokesman Tim Hadac said. Letters are sent after a citizen complaint and are followed by a visit after a second complaint. Visits that turn up evidence of the banished dish can result in fines from $250 to $500.

But Mayor Richard Daley is no fan of the ban--just this week, he called it "the silliest law" the City Council has ever passed.

Perhaps that helps explain why the Health Department is in no rush to boost their compliance checks.

"In a world of very limited public health resources we're being asked to drop some things so we can enforce a law like this," Hadac said. "With HIV/AIDS, cancer, West Nile virus and some of the other things we deal with, foie gras is our lowest priority."

Ald. Joe Moore (49th), sponsor of the ban, took no exception to the fact that foie gras investigation is among the lower priorities for the Public Health Department, or that it is not more active with enforcement.

But he was dismayed to know restaurants are flouting the ordinance.

"It evinces a certain degree of arrogance on the parts of these establishments, but I hope the city will act accordingly," Moore said.

Sohn is among a handful of restaurateurs who say they have no plans to remove the delicacy from their menus. Some owners have tiptoed around the ban by serving the dish under alternate or code names ("I'll have the special lobster" will supposedly score foie gras at one restaurant), but renegades say they'll do what they must to fight City Hall.

"A part of me says sure, I'd take it on," Sohn said. "Another part says why bother? I spend enough time and energy running the restaurant."

As he did before the ban, David Richards, owner of Sweets & Savories, has two foie gras dishes on the menu, which are two of his most expensive: a Kobe beef burger topped with foie gras pate and seared foie gras accompanied by pumpkin flan.

At first, he said, restaurant owners worried their access to foie gras would be limited, and they crafted plots to keep their supply flowing--like getting it mailed to a suburban address for weekly covert pickups. Such cunning turned out not to be necessary, he said. Richards still gets foie gras from the same distributor he always did, and no one seems to care that it is still on his menu.

"We look at it as a choice," he said. "We live in a free-market society and if people are truly offended they won't buy it. If they don't buy it, I won't buy it."

Instead, he said, his foie gras sales have climbed, making him even less inclined to heed the law. But just in case, he has talked with a couple of attorneys who double as loyal customers that told him they are ready to fight any citation on his behalf.

"One guy told me to just get the ticket and fight the constitutionality," Richards said. "But it has settled into a don't ask-don't tell scenario. I see it frequently on menus, and I don't even think about it."

Foie Gras is listed on a handful of other restaurant menus, including high-profile names such as Bin 36, Viand, Butter, Custom House and X/O Chicago.


As many restaurants are currently doing, X/O Chicago initially tweaked the wording on its menu to appear as if it was complying, said Aaron Bischoff, executive chef. Instead of serving foie gras, it served "brioche toast points with a complementary side of foie gras."

When sales of the dish plummeted and they heard of no restaurants being reprimanded for serving foie gras, they returned to dishing out "pan-seared La Bella foie gras served with toasted brioche points and a fig apple chutney."

The sales went back up to preordinance levels of 15 to 20 plates on a busy night, Bischoff said. X/O Chicago is among the nine restaurants for which the Health Department said it has received complaints, but the restaurant staff members said they have not been notified.

Many of those most vocally opposed to the ban have coolly stepped away from the debate by ending their foie gras sales or at least coming up with names clever enough to obscure the issue. Available on the menu at Copperblue, for instance, is "`It Isn't Foie Gras any Moore' Duck Liver Terrine"--a testy nod to the alderman who sponsored the foie gras ban.

Though the $16 cost seems closer to the price of foie gras than simple duck liver, Copperblue chef and owner Michael Tsonton would not say whether he had merely renamed the illicit dish. In September, when still serving foie gras, he got a warning letter that he said he hung in his kitchen.

But Tsonton did say that as the interim president of the Chicago Chefs for Choice, a chapter of the Illinois Restaurant Association, it doesn't behoove him to flout the law even though his organization is trying hard to change it (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text). In November, he hosted a fundraiser for Don Gordon, Moore's opponent in Rogers Park's 49th Ward, raising more than $2,000.

"Right now I've got to play nice," Tsonton said. "I don't serve foie gras, it's duck liver."

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Foie gras warnings

Nine restaurants have received warning letters from the city.

X/O Chicago

North Pond

Block 44

BJ's Market

Connie's

Pizza

Harry Caray's

Bin 36

Hot Doug's

Copperblue

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Copyright 2006, Chicago Tribune

[Animal 0]

Chicago interdit le foie gras
LE MONDE | 29.04.06 | 15h39 • Mis à jour le 18.12.06 NEW YORK CORRESPONDANT

Richard Daley, maire de Chicago (Illinois), n'était pas ravi mercredi soir à la sortie du conseil municipal. "Nous avons des enfants qui se font tuer par des chefs de gang et des trafiquants de drogues. Nous avons de sérieux problèmes ici dans la ville et nous nous occupons du foie gras !" Le conseil venait de décider de faire de Chicago la première ville américaine à rendre hors la loi le foie gras.

Adopté par 48 voix contre 1, le règlement entrera en vigueur dans trois mois et rendra les restaurants et magasins d'alimentation passibles d'une amende de 500 dollars. Son promoteur, le conseiller municipal Joe Moore, a appelé les citoyens à porter plainte en cas de violation : "Nous faisons notre travail pour décourager les pratiques agricoles barbares. Moins il y aura de restaurants servant ce produit de la torture animale, moins il y aura d'animaux victimes d'une cruauté indescriptible." Pour Gene Bauston, président et fondateur de Farm Sanctuary, un groupe de protection des animaux, "Chicago a accompli un acte historique qui aura des conséquences dans tout le pays".

La Human Society of the United States, la plus importante organisation américaine de défense des animaux, a publié des pages de publicité dans les quotidiens de Chicago pour dénoncer le foie gras. Des personnalités du spectacle la soutiennent. L'actrice Margaret Houlihan, "pasionaria" de la cause des canards, a comparé leur sort à celui des prisonniers torturés à Abou Ghraib. Une autre association, Activists People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, a présenté aux élus de Chicago une vidéo où Roger Moore, ex-James Bond, décrit le traitement cruel subi par les canards gavés.

"C'est un précédent grave pour notre industrie", estime Ariane Daguin, fille du chef André Daguin. La fondatrice et présidente de D'Artagnan, un groupe de distribution et d'importation de produits alimentaires français, qui depuis vingt ans cumule les succès sur le marché américain, ajoute : "Ils utilisent l'ignorance pour défendre une cause absurde : pêcher un poisson avec un hameçon, élever un poulet industriellement, saigner un boeuf pour qu'il soit casher ou halal est au moins aussi stressant pour l'animal que le gavage."

Lancée depuis des années, la campagne des organisations de protection des animaux contre le foie gras commence à produire ses effets. A Portland, dans l'Oregon, au début du mois, le restaurant Hurley a fini par le retirer de sa carte : des activistes venaient tous les soirs agiter des images de canards morts et malades devant sa porte.

Au début de l'année, soumis à des pressions identiques, une dizaine d'établissements de Pittsburgh (Pennsylvanie) ont annoncé qu'ils ne vendaient plus de foie gras. La Californie a voté une loi en 2004 qui interdit à partir de 2012 la production sur son territoire et plusieurs autres Etats, dont l'Oregon, celui de New York, l'Illinois, Hawaï et le Massachusetts, pourraient adopter des textes plus durs faisant de la possession même de foie gras un acte criminel.

Les restaurateurs de Chicago dénoncent une intrusion des autorités dans un domaine qui n'est pas le leur. "Le gouvernement n'a pas à nous dire ce que nous devons mettre dans nos menus en dehors des questions de santé", affirme Colleen McShane, la présidente de l'Illinois Restaurant Association.

Le chef Didier Durand, dont le Cyrano est considéré comme l'une des meilleures tables de Chicago, s'emporte contre "les activistes qui ont menti, triché et présenté des photographies truquées aux élus municipaux. On remet en cause la liberté. Personne n'est obligé de manger du foie gras, mais personne ne devrait être privé de ce droit". Son restaurant a été vandalisé en octobre 2005.

Pour Ariane Daguin, qui va tenter de défendre le foie gras avec les quelques producteurs américains et des importateurs, "il faut rapidement établir un rapport de force. Nous allons engager, nous n'avons pas le choix, un lobbyiste important à Washington. Mais nous sommes une cible facile et sans risques pour des politiciens à la recherche de notoriété".

Eric Leser
Article paru dans l'édition du 02.05.06.