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Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
Someone might need to tell the Takoma Park City Council that they're about two years behind the times. Last Monday, the council approved a resolution to oppose the production and sale of foie gras. The resolution also "encourages Takoma Park residents not to buy foie gras to avoid supporting this extreme form of animal cruelty." And, according to the Examiner, certain members of the council have taken some first steps toward investigating whether an outright ban is possible.
Cited in the resolution is California's upcoming ban of the sale and production of foie gras, which doesn't take into effect until 2012. But what the resolution - and perhaps the council - overlooks is Chicago's recent repeal of its own ban. Why? Enforcement of the ban was relatively lax while the city's chefs decried the stifling of creativity. But what would be the real "foul" of this latest proposed ban? A cursory search of Takoma Park reveals no establishments that serve foie gras, while at the same time, enforcement in the privacy of the home would be impossible.
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There is no grocery store in Takoma Park that sells foie gras, nor would the only such store in town (the TP/SS Co-op) ever add it to their offerings.
There is no restaurant in Takoma Park that is upscale enough to serve foie gras, nor are there currently any plans to open one.
This "ban" has about as much substance as the sanctions against Burma the City Council voted into place back in 1996. Some politicians (especially in an "activist"-heavy environment like TP) just feel obligated to get their names on the record on every issue, no matter how irrelevant. You can be reasonably sure this decision will just be ignored and/or ridiculed by the majority of city residents.
damn hippies.
Dumbest. Ban. Ever.
I mean, really. The average foie gras goose lives the life of Reilly compared to your average battery hen or factory-farmed pig.
Admittedly, I'm biased because I find foie gras delicious, but percentage-wise it's a drop in the bucket. Foie gras farms are rare.
You want to protest something, protest the debeaking of battery hens (who would otherwise peck themselves to death). Protest the cutting off of the tails of factory pigs (and lets keep in mind that your average pig is much more intelligent than your average labrador).
Protest the inhumane treatment of animals on a large-scale level, not boutique farms where some of the geese actually come running for the feeding tube.
This is sure to quash the booming culinary scene in Takoma Park -- Home of the "CAVE" people: Citizens Against Virtually Everything.
"In modern gavage-based foie gras production, force feeding takes place 12−18 days before slaughter. The duck or goose is typically fed a controlled amount of corn mash through a tube inserted in the animal's cuticle-lined esophagus."
i can be behind banning that, as well as all factory farming animal related cruelty. i think the city council probably has better things to talk about though.
well, the PRTP has managed to one-up themselves. i'm all for being as left-leaning as you can be, but this is pretty clearly pointless.
Ah. Takoma Park, where people are willing to take a stand, so long as that stand doesn't involve them actually putting forth any actual effort.
mmm... very effective...
Before long Takoma Park will come out again against apartheid in South Africa.
Oh, no, wait, the new South Africa is a basket case.
Hmmm. The Takoma Park City Council weigh-in on the subject is deafening in it's silence.
If you don't support my ban on velociraptors the terrororists win.
Maybe the TPCC will join the airlines in protesting oil speculation. I just got spammed by United Airlines calling for more regulation of the oil futures market. What a bunch of douche-nozzles.
Stupid Takoma Park. Don't they know that anything they do will be greeted with steaming piles of snark from the 22 year-old DCist hipsters? How can intelligent thought possibly be allowed to exist outside a 10 square block area centered on 13th and U Streets?
Anthony Bourdain has made it explicitly clear that we can't apply human standards of cruelty to mallards because of the differences in our gastrointestinal anatomies. There's a good clip from No Reservations floating around on YouTube where it's pointed out that geese lack gag reflexes and have a tough esophageal lining. Plus, in good foie gras farms, the same feeder feeds the animals everyday and the geese are allowed to run around freely. As far as I can tell, the animals didn't look stressed and were living the life.
Then again, I must be biased b/c foie is indeed delicious.
But I can still drive my tactical nuclear missile through Takoma Park, right? And by "my tactical nuclear missile" I mean "my hideously augmented penis."
Seriously, it's all sewn together with parts of dead penises, has a flat head, a pair of bolts through its neck, and is afraid of fire. Villagers always be chasing it back to the castle with torches.
Foie Gras is cruel -- if you're interested look at some undercover footage that's been taken from these farms (e.g. http://www.gourmetcruelty.com/). The animals are force-fed the equivalent of a human eating approximately 45 pounds of pasta a day, for four weeks, via a metal tube shoved down their esophagus. Anthony Bourdain and other nay-sayers are simply wrong; according to veterinary specialists who have commented on this in light of the controversy, there is no physiological reason to believe the animals have a tough esophagus or are naturally predisposed to have a fatty liver. It's just another way for people who make their living off of animal cruelty to divert people's attention. In nature a migrating duck might increase his liver fat somewhat, maybe to something even close to twice its size. Foie gras livers are eight to twelve times the normal size. At that size the liver can't function normally and some of the ducks develop secondary infections and brain-poisoning conditions related to the damaged liver function. Video from the farms show perforated necks where the tube has come through, rats eating necrotic tissue from the back ends of the sick ducks, vomit, and other graphic and disgusting things from this process. It's not pretty, and there's no reason to defend animal cruelty, especially for something so elitist. I don't see any reason why the Takoma Park city council, or anyone for that matter, wouldn't be taking a stand against this sort of blatant animal cruelty.
Stupid Takoma Park.
Yeah. TP is really coloring outside the lines, here. I mean, look at that shit. It doesn't look like anything! Get with the program, TP, and stop passing resolutions that offend my highly-developed appreciation of the status quo.
Stupid Takoma Park. Don't they know that anything they do will be greeted with steaming piles of snark from the 22 year-old DCist hipsters? How can intelligent thought possibly be allowed to exist outside a 10 square block area centered on 13th and U Streets?
More like "Stupid Takoma Park. Why are they wasting their time on a non-issue?"
Don't they know that anything they do will be greeted with steaming piles of snark from the 22 year-old DCist hipsters?
holy cow! i didn't know dcist was like the fountain of youth! i'm posting on every thread. starting today. i'll be back in high school making poor fashion choices before you know it.
The City of Takoma Park has not banned foie gras. The resolution merely "opposes" and "encourages." The operative part is:
The City probably has no authority to ban foie gras. Section 2(19) of the the Express Powers Act (the State law that outlines municipal authority) comes closest to allowing a ban, but it only gives municipalities the authority:The Act does not give the City the ability to define "marketable commodity" or to deny a license. In addition, since there are no stores that sell or restuarants that serve foir gras in Takoma Park, the resolution is merely decorative. A ban on foie gras, would have to be enacted by the State.(It is possible Montgomery County could ban foie gras as they did trans fats, but the trans fat ban was enacted on the basis of human health, where the County has wide latitude. I'm not sure they can regulate foods based on agricultural methods.)
Oh, come now, Takoma is just working in tandem with a story that's been in the news lately! You've read it, right? The one where Chicago REPEALS it's foie gras ban?
Seriously, Takoma. Lighten up. And try a bite of foie, while you're at it... it's rilly rilly good.
oh, delicious irony! at the top of the foie gras story, i'm seeing an ad for an organization that will come by and remove geese from your property. which, i'm assuming, means it will kill them.
oh wow - imgoph. i finally saw that ad. i'm not sure what to think. are these geese that have been liberated from fois gras farms (foirms?) and are wandering the streets planning their strategic overthrow? maybe they haven't yet made it into the district yet - i haven't seen a winged, waddly army.
Personally, I think the members of the Takoma Park city council are right to be worried about animal cruelty. That's why I'm a vegetarian. People (very rightly) got up in arms over Michael Vick, but couldn't care less about cruelty toward the less cute pigs and chickens.
That being said, I am positive that even the Takoma Park city council has better things to do with their time as a city council.
The Chicago ban on this product of animal torture worked just fine until Emperor Daley wanted to prove that he could force its repeal. After all, the sponsor of the ordinance there, Ald. Joe Moore, had called Daley out in the past for allowing the police to torture citizens during interrogations.
San Diego also recently passed a resolution condemning the intolerable cruelty of foie gras:
www.aprl.org/fgreso.pdf
San Diego is a conservative military city, so the issue of animal cruelty cuts across all political persuasions.
Man, you ain't had fois gras until you've had it at Tour D'Argent. Been doin it since the 1750s. They're also famous for their "pressed duck" where, in the classic method, the duck is strangled with bare hands, the legs sent to the roaster, and the breast filleted. The remain meat and bones are put through a "duck press", where every ounce of blood is drained out and reserved for the sauce reduction. It's like something out of Poe, but damned, that's some tasty duck. Some folks say its touristy, but screw them. Any place that uses every ounce of blood a beast has is aces in my book. And they're reducing their carbon footprint with every turn of the screw.
So Takoma Park is a city but virtue of its city council, but Washington, DC is just a town by virtue of it's number one rating...
Happened to see that Census estimated Denver coming out ahead of DC in population last year, by a whole 57 people. D'oh!
Kudos to the Takoma Park City Council for passing a resolution opposing the production and sale of foie gras.
With the passage of this resolution, Takoma Park’s City Council has acted on behalf of those who can’t speak for themselves — the 150,000 ducks force-fed, tortured and slaughtered on America’s two foie gras farms every year.
The Takoma Park City Council should be commended for recognizing what many Americans already know — that foie gras is animal abuse too abhorrent to condone.
I think the Takoma Park town council is just keeping their outrage muscles limber. Still, that town council, and the fact that Takoma Park is its own city, means that they can do things like keep out chain stores and preserve downtown Takoma Park's old-timey feel.
Speaking of which, could someone please open some chain stores here? Or a restaurant nice enough to even theoretically offer foie gras on its menu?
All I know is, the seared fois gras and duck confit at Restaurant Eve are so good you'll smack your Takoma Park City Councilmember's momma.
Ooooh... two whole foie gras farms in all of America?? Yes, by all means, let us force those two small-production family-owned farms out of business, while allowing factory farming operations to continue, carte blanche. Excellent use of energy and resources.
Ricky, I'm SO with you on the need for restaurants, especially someplace more upscale, but what sort of "chain stores" are you exactly looking for? There's pretty much nowhere in TP to put a big grocery store or a big box retailer, and we've already got a few chains like CVS, Subway, and Starbucks (admittedly it's more or less in Langley Park, but it does exist). What stores are you wanting that you can't find within a 10-15 minute drive already?
On the restaurant front, they're clearly trying to promote the renovated space that House of Musical Traditions just vacated as "ideal for a restaurant" . . . we'll just have to hope that somebody takes them up on it.