In defence of foie gras
telegraph.co.ukmore superbad than superfood.Full disclosure: I am a big fan of foie gras. I adore its rich taste and silky texture. I love it served as a savoury terrine contrasted with the sweetness of toasted brioche or crisped up with sticky pan-juices and meltingly soft within.Few meat eaters deny that foie gras is deliciously decadent.
But controversy surrounds its production, specifically the final 10 days of a bird's life, when it is force-fed to fatten up the liver to six times its natural size.
As with any form of meat production, there are foie gras producers who raise the bird under atrocious conditions on an industrial scale.
But I fail to see how eating foie gras in a restaurant such as Otto's on Gray's Inn Road, London, where the owner ensures the livers are from birds reared outdoors and fed by hand, is different from consuming any other ethically sourced meat.The UK currently imports around 200 tonnes of foie gras a year but polls suggest the British public is overwhelmingly in favour of an outright ban, following similar legislation in California and New York.Yet this form of food preparation is as old as Western civilisation.
Read more on telegraph.co.uk
