"We believe that the issue is not about foie gras," said Bryan Scott, a foie gras lobbyist working with the group which became a chapter of the Illinois Restaurant Association. "It's about consumer choice and personal freedom--and whether the Chicago City Council can legislate away freedoms guaranteed under the constitution."
"Why should someone tell us what we can or can't serve, buy or produce that the FDA puts its stamp on daily?" seconded chef Michael Tsonton of Copperblue, one of the group's founders.
"We live in a free-market society and if people are truly offended they won't buy it," agreed David Richards, owner of Sweets & Savories which features a Kobe beef burger topped with foie gras pate and seared foie gras accompanied by pumpkin flan.
Soon the group was holding Foie Gras Fest fundraisers.
Graham Elliot Bowles, chef at Avenues in the Peninsula Hotel even offered a foie gras tasting menu with foie gras custard, mousse, brioche, vinaigrette, lollipop and milkshake. Price? $238 per diner. (The fourth course was a terrine of foie gras snow frozen and whirred into a powder and served with kangaroo, lime, eucalyptus and melon.)
The chefs had other arguments too, beside Chefs' Rights.
They appealed to tradition and an animal's true nature.
Waterfowl "naturally gorge" before long migratory flights they quoted Michael Ginor, founder of Hudson Valley Foie Gras, saying and their livers are "evolved as fat-storing warehouses."
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