California sides with the animal rights nuts

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Mar 12, 2012
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California is going to ban people from eating goose liver otherwise known as foie gras. But you can smoke pot openly on a street corner in San Francisco. What's next? A ban on hamburgers?

By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times

June 29, 2012
This weekend, foie gras — fattened duck or goose liver — will vanish from California restaurants and gourmet groceries.

And that has sent Sean Jordan on a one-man "foie gras bender."

The Hollywood television producer resident knows that the pricey delicacy obtained from force-fed birds has been condemned by animal rights activists. Concerns about cruelty are what drove legislators in Sacramento to make California the first state in the nation to ban sales and production of the product.

But Jordan just can't help himself. With Sunday's deadline fast approaching, the 39-year-old said he's plotting a goose liver spree. Among his planned stops is a trip to Hatfield's restaurant in Hollywood for a $25 foie gras appetizer.

"The ban is sneaking up on me with no time to spare," he said. "I've got to hit as much as I can."

He's not alone.

Restaurants and fans across the state are bidding au revoir with a passion. Eateries such as Petrossian in West Hollywood and Chaya Brasserie in Beverly Hills have designed lavish, multi-course tasting menus featuring foie gras poached, seared and even served in parfait and ice cream desserts. The Bazaar in West Los Angeles has foie gras on a stick, swathed in cotton candy, for $5 a pop.

Diners are organizing group events such as "foie gras crawls."

In Santa Monica, restaurant Melisse is offering a seven-course, $185 Foie for All menu. Debuted just three months ago, the menu is now ordered by half of all customers, chef Ken Takayama said.

"I have never bought so much foie gras in my entire cooking career," Takayama said. "It's just insane."

The French specialty, pronounced "fwah grah," is often served as a complete organ or as a mousse or pate. More than two millennia ago, the ancient Greeks enjoyed the delicacy; it has since been served to French monarch Louis XVI, passengers on the Titanic and countless foodies.

Fans adore foie gras for its rich, buttery flavor. Chefs say it's a central tenet of their cooking repertoire — comparable to caviar and truffles.

But animal welfare advocates have long decried the force feeding of geese and ducks that's often used to produce it. Known as gavage, the process involves gorging a fowl with grain via a tube pushed down its throat.

Some experts believe the method doesn't hurt the birds, which don't have a gag reflex. Animal rights advocates say it's inhumane, causing pain and wreaking havoc with the animals' psychological state.

"Trends shift. People will buy something else," said Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. "The world doesn't turn economically on the sales of foie gras."

Italy, Britain and Germany have banned foie gras. In the U.S., Chicago outlawed it for a couple of years before reversing its decision in 2008.

In California, a ban was signed into law in 2004 by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger; it forbids the in-state sale and production of products derived from force-fed birds. Restaurateurs and Sonoma Foie Gras, the only producer in California, were given eight years — until July 1, 2012 — to adapt.

Starting next week, violators face a potential fine of as much as $1,000 a day.

That penalty is enough to persuade Chef Greg Daniels of Haven Gastropub & Brewery in Pasadena to reluctantly abide by the law.
 
How exactly do you foie gras and weed together? Smoking weed is a personal choice that does not affect anyone else, just like smoking a cigarette (so long as it is done in private).


Force feeding a fowl so that someone can enjoy eating it's liver is animal torture. Personally, being an animal lover I think that is disgusting. I am fully aware that we are an omnivorous species and I eat meat and fish as well. I try and only eat free range meats and wild caught fish. I do not believe it is OK for humans to torture other animals simply because we can.


Watch a video of how they make it. Not sure how anyone could eat it after they saw it. I think it takes a seriously twisted individual to do that to an animal.
 
How exactly do you foie gras and weed together? Smoking weed is a personal choice that does not affect anyone else, just like smoking a cigarette (so long as it is done in private).


Force feeding a fowl so that someone can enjoy eating it's liver is animal torture. Personally, being an animal lover I think that is disgusting. I am fully aware that we are an omnivorous species and I eat meat and fish as well. I try and only eat free range meats and wild caught fish. I do not believe it is OK for humans to torture other animals simply because we can.


Watch a video of how they make it. Not sure how anyone could eat it after they saw it. I think it takes a seriously twisted individual to do that to an animal.

I'll start with weed. I was in San Francisco waiting to cross the street while a woman lit up her pipe. Since I am subject to random drug testing, I asked her to put it out or move. She and her girlfriend implied it was perfectly legal until another couple with a child also gave them a strong reminder to find another place to smoke.

Have you ever been to Chinatown and seen ducks hanging in the window? Are you offended by that? It's still legal to eat the duck but not the liver? Just throw it away. Makes sense....right.

What's next, ban enjoying a Turkey Thanksgiving dinner?


 
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xUT, Did you know Ted Nugent is a pretty good cook as well?

Gig Em! TAMU

Tribal Fare
The Nugents are not only good cooks, they’re a spiritual phenomenon.
spacer.gif

Kill It and Grill It, (Regnery, 203 pp., $21.95)
Two years ago, Ted Nugent — rock guitarist, writer, hunter, and family-man penned God, Guns and Rock and Roll, a book of political thoughts and life anecdotes that sped onto the New York Times bestseller list.
So how does Nugent follow up such a success? He writes a cookbook, of course.
Kill It and Grill It, written by Nugent and his wife Shemane, is a compilation of more than 50 recipes for deer, elk, wild boar, rabbit, bear, wild turkey, duck, squirrel, and more. But the culinary formulas are only part of the menu offered by the Nugents. Ted and Shemane also suggest that you accept responsibility for being carnivores by going out and killing at least some of the meat you eat. They also have some meat-eating tips that will make for a more fulfilling experience. For example, when the kids are in bed, try and eat game in front of a roaring fire while seated nude on a bearskin rug. The Nugents let your imagination fill in the rest. Saucy stuff.
In God, Guns and Rock and Roll, much of America was introduced to Ted's lively prose. It's a writing style that continues in the cookbook (Shemane contributes two chapters of twenty-two, so the majority of the book's prose smacks of Ted). Why is game important to Ted Nugent's diet? Here's his answer, penned in a style that can only be attributed to one human: "Pure, real, honest-to-God freerange protein is the rocketfuel for my spiritual campfire."
The carnivorous Nugent family has not bought any meat from a grocery store since l969. Their theory, which is Ted's theory, always goes back to the diet-richness found only in wild game. Ted writes, "How better to give honor to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness than to party hardy with delicious meat, lovingly carved from skeletons of protein-rich animals in the ultimate afterlife habitat of steel and charcoal?"
Ted may speak rock and roll, but this book is grounded in science. Wild-game meat is low in fat, low in cholesterol, and high in protein. The American Heart Association recommends wild game. Native people whose regular diets are similar to the Nugents' show little evidence of the heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and hardening of the arteries that plague modern civilized man.
So, if you buy into the formula so simply stated in the book's title, Ted and Shemane are ready to walk you through the process of transforming wild game on the hoof into meat on the table. The Nugent hierarchy for cooking game is this: "kill, clean, cool, cut, cure, freeze, cook and rejoice." At each step, their suggestions — and recipes — are pragmatic and clear.
The majority of the recipes in Kill It and Grill It are for deer and wild boar, which not only are Nugent-family favorites, but are out there in abundance.
There are at least 33 million whitetail deer in the U.S. today — more than at any time since the white man arrived. And the white man brought with him domestic pigs, some of which got loose and went wild. These feral hogs have since multiplied and bred with true wild boar that were introduced to the wild more recently. So, "wild pigs" are now found across the U.S. They multiply like rabbits and wreck havoc on the landscape as they dine. In most all states they are considered pests, and there is no hunting limit or closed season for this game. To be sure, if you follow in the footsteps of the Nugents, you're not going to threaten the ecology of North America. There's plenty of game to go around these days.
And now to the taste test. I had a wild-boar roast and some chukar partridge in the freezer, bagged during a trip to the Turk Station Lodge in the rolling hills around Coalinga, Calif. A recent trip to the Consumnes River Ranch near Sacramento had resulted in a fine wild turkey, and I added that to the test-game pile along with some wild geese and ducks left over from last fall. Friends chipped in some venison and antelope steaks, and we had most of the bases covered. I got out the cookbook, and we assembled for a beast feast.
From the start, we had some tough decisions. If you're a meat-eater, you would too, having to choose from Jamaican Jerk Venison, Stuffed and Rolled Venison Log, Italian Venison Casserole, Wild Boar Chops, Sweet and Sour Antelope, Goosebreast Rendezvous, Squirrel Casserole, Pheasant Chow Mein, Rabbit Belle Chasse, Wild Turkey with Morel Sauce, and on and on. But we narrowed it down, and went at it.
As an appetizer, we brewed up some Canada goose Biltong jerky. It is not always easy to render wild geese palatable, but this recipe produced dark, leathery, flavorful strips that were a quick favorite. Slow-roasting the antelope on the grill — the method the Nugents suggest for this type of game — made for a flavorable and tender Bar-B-Que Antelope Backstrap. Shemane's recipe for Coca-Cola Venison Stew was shocking on paper but it produced a delightful surprise — the beverage tenderizes and sweetens even the toughest old wild stag. And Ted's recipe for Quail Roast was not only tasty, but also addressed the toughness problem inherent in this bird.
As for the pièce de résistance, we used the Boar Roast recipe. It calls for about four pounds of wild boar, which is seasoned with basil, pepper, thyme, three cloves of garlic (Ted loves garlic), and paprika. The roast is then wrapped with four strips of bacon and put in a 350-degree oven with a meat thermometer. Cooking time is three to four hours, for as Ted points out, pork needs to be cooked to at least 160 degrees internally (170 for well done) to kill trichinosis.
"We don't just cook, we dance naked at the primordial campfire of life," the Nugents proclaim. I don't have a bearskin rug on my floor. I have a woodstove, not a fireplace. So, once our feast was over, we had to depart a bit from the complete Nugent game-eating experience. However, after savoring as many of the Nugent-family recipes as possible, that Marin County hot tub sure did feel good. And the coyotes and owls in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area did seem to sing an especially good concert for us that night under the spotlight of the full moon.

Kill It and Grill It is more than just a good cookbook, it's nourishment for the soul and inspiration for the heart.
 
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I'll start with weed. I was in San Francisco waiting to cross the street while a woman lit up her pipe. Since I am subject to random drug testing, I asked her to put it out or move. She and her girlfriend implied it was perfectly legal until another couple with a child also gave them a strong reminder to find another place to smoke.

Have you ever been to Chinatown and seen ducks hanging in the window? Are you offended by that? It's still legal to eat the duck but not the liver? Just throw it away. Makes sense....right.

What's next, ban enjoying a Turkey Thanksgiving dinner?

I have not read the SFO law buff Im willing to bet you can't smoke it in public so not sure.what that example has to do with anything. As far as ducks in the window, not.sure how that applies either. As I said, I eat meat. I have no issue with raising animals for food so long as they are treated well while they are alive. Force feeding a animal while alive is crule in my opinion.
 
I have not read the SFO law buff Im willing to bet you can't smoke it in public so not sure.what that example has to do with anything. As far as ducks in the window, not.sure how that applies either. As I said, I eat meat. I have no issue with raising animals for food so long as they are treated well while they are alive. Force feeding a animal while alive is crule in my opinion.

You make a good argument. Liver, I never liked it and would pass up on the Foie Gras. The problem I have is with California's ban, the same problem I have with New York saying I can't order a super-sized drink and popcorn at a movie theater. Where does it end?

Smoking pot is illegal unless you get the medical pass card. If someone is sitting at a table next to me eating Foie Gras, doesn't bother me. If you light up while I am having a meal, that's like having a peeing section in a pool. That's when your business becomes my business.
 
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I'll start with weed. I was in San Francisco waiting to cross the street while a woman lit up her pipe. Since I am subject to random drug testing, I asked her to put it out or move. She and her girlfriend implied it was perfectly legal until another couple with a child also gave them a strong reminder to find another place to smoke.

Have you ever been to Chinatown and seen ducks hanging in the window? Are you offended by that? It's still legal to eat the duck but not the liver? Just throw it away. Makes sense....right.

What's next, ban enjoying a Turkey Thanksgiving dinner?

You aren't going to get popped standing next to a chickie smoking weed. Even then its slim to none. Smoke one dube a month and you'll stay within the threshold set in the test for second hand smoke. I know where you're coming from though.

Medical card still don't get past FAA reg's if you're a greaser.
 
xUT, Did you know Ted Nugent is a pretty good cook as well?

Gig Em! TAMU

Tribal Fare
The Nugents are not only good cooks, they’re a spiritual phenomenon.
spacer.gif

Kill It and Grill It, (Regnery, 203 pp., $21.95)
Two years ago, Ted Nugent — rock guitarist, writer, hunter, and family-man penned God, Guns and Rock and Roll, a book of political thoughts and life anecdotes that sped onto the New York Times bestseller list.
So how does Nugent follow up such a success? He writes a cookbook, of course.
Kill It and Grill It, written by Nugent and his wife Shemane, is a compilation of more than 50 recipes for deer, elk, wild boar, rabbit, bear, wild turkey, duck, squirrel, and more. But the culinary formulas are only part of the menu offered by the Nugents. Ted and Shemane also suggest that you accept responsibility for being carnivores by going out and killing at least some of the meat you eat. They also have some meat-eating tips that will make for a more fulfilling experience. For example, when the kids are in bed, try and eat game in front of a roaring fire while seated nude on a bearskin rug. The Nugents let your imagination fill in the rest. Saucy stuff.
In God, Guns and Rock and Roll, much of America was introduced to Ted's lively prose. It's a writing style that continues in the cookbook (Shemane contributes two chapters of twenty-two, so the majority of the book's prose smacks of Ted). Why is game important to Ted Nugent's diet? Here's his answer, penned in a style that can only be attributed to one human: "Pure, real, honest-to-God freerange protein is the rocketfuel for my spiritual campfire."
The carnivorous Nugent family has not bought any meat from a grocery store since l969. Their theory, which is Ted's theory, always goes back to the diet-richness found only in wild game. Ted writes, "How better to give honor to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness than to party hardy with delicious meat, lovingly carved from skeletons of protein-rich animals in the ultimate afterlife habitat of steel and charcoal?"
Ted may speak rock and roll, but this book is grounded in science. Wild-game meat is low in fat, low in cholesterol, and high in protein. The American Heart Association recommends wild game. Native people whose regular diets are similar to the Nugents' show little evidence of the heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and hardening of the arteries that plague modern civilized man.
So, if you buy into the formula so simply stated in the book's title, Ted and Shemane are ready to walk you through the process of transforming wild game on the hoof into meat on the table. The Nugent hierarchy for cooking game is this: "kill, clean, cool, cut, cure, freeze, cook and rejoice." At each step, their suggestions — and recipes — are pragmatic and clear.
The majority of the recipes in Kill It and Grill It are for deer and wild boar, which not only are Nugent-family favorites, but are out there in abundance.
There are at least 33 million whitetail deer in the U.S. today — more than at any time since the white man arrived. And the white man brought with him domestic pigs, some of which got loose and went wild. These feral hogs have since multiplied and bred with true wild boar that were introduced to the wild more recently. So, "wild pigs" are now found across the U.S. They multiply like rabbits and wreck havoc on the landscape as they dine. In most all states they are considered pests, and there is no hunting limit or closed season for this game. To be sure, if you follow in the footsteps of the Nugents, you're not going to threaten the ecology of North America. There's plenty of game to go around these days.
And now to the taste test. I had a wild-boar roast and some chukar partridge in the freezer, bagged during a trip to the Turk Station Lodge in the rolling hills around Coalinga, Calif. A recent trip to the Consumnes River Ranch near Sacramento had resulted in a fine wild turkey, and I added that to the test-game pile along with some wild geese and ducks left over from last fall. Friends chipped in some venison and antelope steaks, and we had most of the bases covered. I got out the cookbook, and we assembled for a beast feast.
From the start, we had some tough decisions. If you're a meat-eater, you would too, having to choose from Jamaican Jerk Venison, Stuffed and Rolled Venison Log, Italian Venison Casserole, Wild Boar Chops, Sweet and Sour Antelope, Goosebreast Rendezvous, Squirrel Casserole, Pheasant Chow Mein, Rabbit Belle Chasse, Wild Turkey with Morel Sauce, and on and on. But we narrowed it down, and went at it.
As an appetizer, we brewed up some Canada goose Biltong jerky. It is not always easy to render wild geese palatable, but this recipe produced dark, leathery, flavorful strips that were a quick favorite. Slow-roasting the antelope on the grill — the method the Nugents suggest for this type of game — made for a flavorable and tender Bar-B-Que Antelope Backstrap. Shemane's recipe for Coca-Cola Venison Stew was shocking on paper but it produced a delightful surprise — the beverage tenderizes and sweetens even the toughest old wild stag. And Ted's recipe for Quail Roast was not only tasty, but also addressed the toughness problem inherent in this bird.
As for the pièce de résistance, we used the Boar Roast recipe. It calls for about four pounds of wild boar, which is seasoned with basil, pepper, thyme, three cloves of garlic (Ted loves garlic), and paprika. The roast is then wrapped with four strips of bacon and put in a 350-degree oven with a meat thermometer. Cooking time is three to four hours, for as Ted points out, pork needs to be cooked to at least 160 degrees internally (170 for well done) to kill trichinosis.
"We don't just cook, we dance naked at the primordial campfire of life," the Nugents proclaim. I don't have a bearskin rug on my floor. I have a woodstove, not a fireplace. So, once our feast was over, we had to depart a bit from the complete Nugent game-eating experience. However, after savoring as many of the Nugent-family recipes as possible, that Marin County hot tub sure did feel good. And the coyotes and owls in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area did seem to sing an especially good concert for us that night under the spotlight of the full moon.

Kill It and Grill It is more than just a good cookbook, it's nourishment for the soul and inspiration for the heart.

Ted Nugent and Anthony Bourdain.

 
You aren't going to get popped standing next to a chickie smoking weed. Even then its slim to none. Smoke one dube a month and you'll stay within the threshold set in the test for second hand smoke. I know where you're coming from though.

Medical card still don't get past FAA reg's if you're a greaser.

Company policy with alcohol is a zero tolerance. Blow anything above a zero...fail. What is the chemical in pot, THC? Whatever it is, I don't want to be anywhere near that stuff. You may be correct about FAA tolerances but the company? Less forgiving.

Video link:

Good interview with the motorcity madman until it stopped halfway through.
 
You make a good argument. Liver, I never liked it and would pass up on the Foie Gras. The problem I have is with California's ban, the same problem I have with New York saying I can't order a super-sized drink and popcorn at a movie theater. Where does it end?

Smoking pot is illegal unless you get the medical pass card. If someone is sitting at a table next to me eating Foie Gras, doesn't bother me. If you light up while I am having a meal, that's like having a peeing section in a pool. That's when your business becomes my business.

I draw the line base on harm to the individual verses others. If someone choose to smoke weed or drop acid it's on them. Yes there are effects that can trickle down but I do not see legislation being effective for stuff that could happen. With foies gras or with veal an animal is being tortured for our eating pleasure. I support any law prohibiting that kind of abuse.

I do not agree with the law in NY. I understand the point but I.do not believe it can be legislated.
 
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I am fully aware that we are an omnivorous species and I eat meat and fish as well. I try and only eat free range meats and wild caught fish. I do not believe it is OK for humans to torture other animals simply because we can.


Let's just take "wild caught fish." I'm hard pressed to imagine a great deal of fun there for the fish....just swimming along and going for a bite of presumed food, and finding themselves instead ingesting a giant hook, struggling in a literally life or death combat...and, exhausted and helpless, dragged up into an un "breathable" atmosphere. Yeah...that sure sounds like a true kindness to offer to another living creature. No point in going into the whole netting thing. As for free range meats?....Umm..doesn't that still require ruthlessly killing the animals in question?...and that...even without any semblance of a fair trial? What's truly done with the free range kills that's so incredibly "humane"?....lethal injection after reading them their rights perhaps? ;)

Bottom Line = All life exists at the expense of other life on this planet.

Just to make sure I have this right: As a carnivore; you're perfectly fine with killing helpless animals...but you're very concerned with keeping them "comfortable" up to that point...?

Personally; I'm fine with eating meat....just not equally so with complete hypocrisy.
 
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I draw the line base on harm to the individual verses others. If someone choose to smoke weed or drop acid it's on them. Yes there are effects that can trickle down but I do not see legislation being effective for stuff that could happen. With foies gras or with veal an animal is being tortured for our eating pleasure. I support any law prohibiting that kind of abuse.

I do not agree with the law in NY. I understand the point but I.do not believe it can be legislated.

I do not believe that the gooberment should mandate morality. This issue should have been brought to the people to vote on. We have too many asinine laws and this is just another one. So to get my foie gras fix, I'll have a buddy buy it for me from Reno. Until the 'state' sets up gestapo check points and frisk little old ladies in wheel chairs for goose liver.

Considering the importance of 'real issues', this one is a minus zero.

B) xUT
 
I tend to agree there. I don't think a chicken feels less tortured after being chased down then killed than one that was penned up slated for death.

Of course, I am no chicken.