Chef criticized for foie gras on menu
Last Updated: Friday, November 20, 2009 | 11:29 AM AT
CBC News
A Charlottetown restaurant owner says he would consider permanently taking foie gras off his menu if there were a large group of people who wanted it removed.
'I don't really have a problem with it.'— Chef Gordon Bailey
Earth Action co-founder Sharon Labchuk, who is also leader of the provincial Green Party, sent out a news release this week calling attention to the foie gras at Lot 30, and asking chef and owner Gordon Bailey to stop serving it.
Foie gras is made from the livers of ducks and geese whose organs have been enlarged by force-feeding.
"It's one of the cruelest practices humans can do to animals in terms of how we raise animals for food production. Many governments around the world have recognized that," said Labchuk.
"It's been banned in California, that law is coming into effect in 2012."
Labchuk is encouraging people to contact Bailey to ask him to take it off the menu.
Bailey acknowledges he does have foie gras on the menu from time to time. He has toured the facility in Quebec where he buys duck liver. He said the animals are force fed through a nozzle, but he doesn't feel it's done in a cruel way. "Personally, if it's done in clean conditions with the proper people who have the knowledge of how to do it, then I don't really have a problem with it," said Bailey.
"I would consider totally taking it off the menu if it seemed there was the larger sense of wanting to see it removed."
Bailey noted a ban on foie gras on Chicago menus was lifted last year.
He said no customer has ever raised the issue before, but he said he has heard from people who come to the restaurant specifically for the foie gras.
