Money quote: "He says foie gras is cruel, but he could have also called it boring - a cliché slurped by too many diners who, we suspect, would swoon just as easily over the velvety succulence of Spam or schmaltz on rye, if they were prohibitively priced and listed on the menu in French."
Personally, I'm happy as a duck in water with chicken liver.
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/04/opinion/04mon4.html">Let them not eat foie gras!</a>
Hammering a duck's feet to the ground, sticking a tube down its throat, and force feeding it, is cruel, but this practise has been banned in almost every state for decades. France and many other countries do still do it though.
However, I have no problem with Hudson Valley Foie Gras from New York, inwhich the mallard is simply allowed to eat as much grain as it likes, similar to a free range cow, lamb, salmon, or mussel. Unnatural? Yes, as they nearly kill themselves from overeating. Cruel? Barely.
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I bet schmaltz on rye would sell like proverbial hot cakes if listed as (at the Sonse):
coq gras sur seigle $25
(Please feel free to correct my French, anyone.)
If I was stuck in a cooler full of beer, you might want to eat my liver too. I still weep for the little duckies a bit...
Lardo: falls in the pancetta family, but because I like it so much, I will give its own spot. Lardo is lard and that's it. It is the pure fat portion of the bacon cured in salt and herbs and then served very thinly sliced. It melts on your tongue like soft butter. I have not yet checked the American Heart Associations daily recommended portion of Lardo, and no, this is nothing like the American lard that you buy in a tub and that my grandmother used to make her extraordinary pie crusts.
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This has gotta make a comeback at some point!
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<i>"Hardcore Stricken Fagan at the Wad caused dance party Total Kenobi."</i> Rory_Stark
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The family crisis was averted after this as we all had a pretty good laugh about it, and it has since made it into the annals of 'insider family joke'.
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Point is that I haven't eaten either speck or lardo, and Dawn is VERY much more a foodie than I am, but that lardo we had looked a lot like the speck that PChippy and I were served in a hutte in the Dolomites. Peter ate his (otherwise it would have gone to waste), but I was still too grossed out.
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<i>"Hardcore Stricken Fagan at the Wad caused dance party Total Kenobi."</i> Rory_Stark
Get this man a Mammoth Burger!
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