gastropoda

Also, too, I tuned out nearly all the fluffing for the hometown paper’s big “morality of meat-eating” debate — it had all the validity of a HuffPost boob-science screamer, with its naked intent to amass links and comments. But I did read a news story in the relatively-sedate-for-Murdoch competition on the sad state of horses in this country that subtly made a very good case for the morality of eating horsemeat: to prevent suffering. Since the animal “rights” wackos got equine slaughterhouses shut down, horses often starve before they are sent off on long, miserable drives to abattoirs north and south of the ethical borders. If I were the naive type, I’d be wondering where all the concerned citizens of California are in preventing this outrage rather than outlawing the practice of letting ducks eat like the poors. But I’m probably among the very few not surprised that a grandstander would publicly ban foie gras while privately bowing to clients for private parties. Give that paragon a cheese-ass medal.

Speaking of horses, much in the news as food recently, the lede of the hometown paper’s front-pager on banning beast-of-burden-drawn carriages in the park was buried in the last graf. For once I’m on the animal-rights activists’ side, because this city will beat the manure out of the strongest human; horses don’t belong in the bedlam and mayhem. I also feel sick every time I see some sad old steed plodding along pulling the gross national weight of Iowa. But, as always, the issue is a little more complicated. As the last quote quoted noted, every horse saved would go straight to slaughter because there are no refuges to take them in, especially in a depression. At least the slaughterhouse would be on American soil. But horse tartare is still horse tartare. And I kinda doubt tourists would line up for it in the Plaza food hall, for a “real” New York experience.

It says everything that it took the Taiwanese animators to make the most fair-and-balanced sense of the cheval scandale. As someone who spends way too much time reading and not nearly enough writing, I already knew the issue was complicated. With hearts bleeding for ducks allowed to gorge to their guts’ content, everyone assumes inhumanity is involved in turning Seabiscuit into supper. But forcing the poor animals to be trucked out of the country for slaughter sounds far more traumatic to me. (Not that I’m whinnying, but the longest, hardest day of my life was the one spent getting from a hospital in Torino to our apartment in New York on a broken femur — and I had warm nuts in business class to ease me through it.) It’s fascinating to see people who happily eat cheap pork from abused hogs worrying about a protein many cultures regard as perfectly acceptable, even commanding a premium. I’ve tasted it only once*, the first time my too-curious consort insisted on ordering it, in a swanky restaurant in Florence where it was served in thin shreds as an expensive appetizer. I remember it was surprisingly good. But mostly I remember that the waiter kept wiping his oily nose and I later developed what felt like a particularly brutal form of bird flu. I would say “sick as a dog,” but that would be dinner in other cultures. Cooked at fever temp.

*Amended after a long walk: I remember I tasted it again, also in Italy, in Treviso, on bruschetta. And definitely not priced like dog food.

Finally, there’s something beyond ironic in the Germans of all people stepping up to declare foie gras a product of such unspeakable cruelty that it can’t be sold in their homeland. Of course, the fact that the Israelis have mastered mass production of the stuff is also unsettling if you think about it too much. But how can a country that tortures cabbage be passing judgment on any food?

Sort of just back from the north, I’m enjoying the tempest in the tofu. Those poor vegans duped into drooling over airbrushed food porn could be straight out of “The Crying Game.” Eat meat and cheese and eggs, guys. It makes you more skeptical.

For once I’m on the side of the animal rights (a k a “no meat for you!”) loons: Porking up monkeys to study obesity seems beyond cruel when it’s so obvious what makes humans fat. The researchers could just spend a New York minute in Real America. I’m sure there are millions of people who would happily stand in for the suffering simians with such a life: eat all day, never move? Knowing every 5 extra pounds puts 25 pounds of stress on your hips and knees, I just felt huge empathy for those poor cousins moping in cages when they were born to run, and climb. Talk about suffering for our super-sized sins. What’s truly sickening is that the misery is inflicted for ill-gotten gains: Big Pharma is torturing in search of the holy grail to market for megabucks. Not for the first time do I want to connect the dots with diabetes — what would be more lucrative than a whole country with an induced disease to treat for life? Maybe ducks and geese are blessed — only their livers get engorged by overfeeding. Plus some pleasure results from it; you certainly can’t sauté a pill. And man can’t get morbidly obese on foie gras alone.

File under onward and downward: The dessert innovation this Thanksgiving is three pies baked inside cakes and glued together with frosting; Go Fuck Yourself traveling around the world like a turducken, with his Airstream inside a cargo plane, was more appealing. (Now if they deep-fried either travesty, we could talk.) And there’s something sad about a once-renowned restaurant now happily competing with Joe Allen’s for the after-theater burger crowd.  On the plus side, a hunter who shot and cooked a wild duck with an engorged liver finally provided graphic evidence of what sentient beings already understood: Those birds will naturally eat till their innards are fit for sautéing.

I Tweeted this but will say it again: If the foie gras crazies are so worried about avian welfare, shouldn’t they be picketing BP, not Bouchon and other Keller establishments? I imagine drowning in crude oil would be far more miserable than living like your average fast food junkie. Their spelling may be better, but these misguided zealots are the Teabaggers of food. Whether with food or with faith, those who truly believe generally don’t need to proselytize. Only vegans who are still tempted by a cheeseburger want to keep you from eating one. Maybe someone should invent Taliban-brand seitan.

I’ve been researching a story where references to things like reindeer meat at Christmastime keep popping up, so I wasn’t too surprised to see bunnies hopping down the Dining trail just before Easter. As I Tweeted, I don’t think Americans will ever be able to face their food in the fur. But the piece had almost as big a disconnect as Baccarat flutes in the age of dollar-store glassware. I can still hear the horror when Michael Moore dared to present Flint residents raising rabbits as food for cash. Now that old movie looks like the chronicle of America foretold. Still, I sided with the killers in this piece, at least looking at the cover photo over cappuccino at the kitchen counter with my consort. As I reminded him, rabbits may look cute, but watch out. I’ll never forget the bloody mayhem Bob provoked in Piemonte while shooting a special breed of rodents in the Slow Food ark — the poor farmer did as he was told and put the huge rabbit on his lap for the photo, and the tame thing shredded his forearms with its back paws. Those suckers are Glenn Close compared to your average chicken. Boil away.

Hellmann’s is the Rachael of the processed food world — its name is 98 percent likely to be misspelled every time. It’s equally good at catapulting the propaganda, too, garnering huge publicity merely for switching to “cage-free” eggs in one of its several lines of mayonnaise. Not to be all unappreciative or anything, but wouldn’t it send more of a message to save up a few extra million dozen until you can promote a switchover for the non-lite stuff? Otherwise, clean-conscience eggs are squandered in fud Michael Pollan would not advocate eating. But at least it’s not as silly as Chipotle hyping its change to “vegan chicken” for its burritos. I mean, really — those poor birds are sentenced to live without natural worms in their diet, only to wind up as mega-meals for meat eaters? Why not just keep them gluten-free and wrap them up in flour tortillas?

I am anything but soft-headed when it comes to foie gras, but I have to admit Bob Herbert’s column on the exploitation of the farmworkers who make it possible was disturbing. I can never understand why animal rights activists neglect the human kind. Even more mystifying is why fools who don’t know people are apparently dying from force-feeding at Guantanamo are all worked up about . . . dead fish. I guess salmon need their dignity even in piscine heaven, because there’s some brouhaha over Pike Place Market stuntmen throwing them at a veterinarians’ convention. Message to idiots: Stick a cod in your pie hole and be done with it.

My cranky cheesemonger friend forwarded me the release touting Costco’s caving to the foie gras nutcases and I laughed it off as ridiculous grandstanding — how many 50-lobe packs of the stuff could the chain possibly be selling? More important, foie gras really is not a food that ever belonged in big box stores; if it did, Smithfield would be on it like stink on hog shit. But my beleaguered friend has made me see the error of my thinking. Once the most powerful outlets give in to the crazies, the crazies will come after the weaker ones. And this is like the proverbial fight between two elephants — the grass getting stomped is the producer. So far, fattening livers is still perfectly legal. But this is a country where they shoot abortionists, don’t they?

Call this “when the dew is on the tarte Tatin.” In an unnerving week for food phrasing, I saw pate goose. And oxtail beef. And I got a propaganda-catapulting email wondering if I knew quinoa was a plant product (as opposed to what, a funeral wail?) But on the serious side, I wonder if the weird wording of “pate goose” had anything to do with fear of foie gras — you can’t say anything these days without setting off the liver fascists. But I do have to admit I’m even more than normally astonished that a New York City councilman would take up the faux foie cause when kids are getting beaten to death in their foster homes and building inspectors are apparently taking bribes and cranes are falling and hungry old homebound people are getting shafted. Sure, raise our property taxes to send more inspectors out to be sure the hyper-rich can’t have an indulgence. Now that Chicago has given up the ghost of goose pate, do we really want to be the second city?

What’s left to say about the Ping-Pong ball shot straight into the CEO’s office at Dunkin Do Nots? I guess “foie gras.” How’s that Chicago crackdown going? Oh. Right. So well that the original Saucier’s Apprentice jetted straight off to wallow in the resurgence there now that Prohibition has nearly ended. It almost restores your faith in America. Idiots may pull ads when lunatics insist. But banning an indulgence just ramps up the demand. (Or, take away gin, birth a mob.) I’ve only wrangled the raw Hitchens-esque livers once in my cooking life, but even I was ready to run to my nearest dealer to get a couple of lobes to poach in duck stock after reading the Journal. Imagine the stampede if they outlawed felafel in a keffiyeh-print napkin under an anchor baby’s butt.

Maybe I finally have to agree foie gras should be banned. No duck or goose should ever have to give up its bloated liver for a promotional stunt like the one Burger Pretender was briefly reported to be running. Thanks to my new addiction, I heard marketing geniuses had cooked up a fecal patty topped with foie gras plus blue cheese (activists should shut the chain down for that dairy offense against taste alone). The too-perfectly named European blog of People for the Harassment of Carnivores (Fish & Chimps) extracted a strange denial, but not before the Wonker-Outer noted that pricing the thing at 85 pounds was brilliant because it sent a quality message so strong not a single one ever needed to be sold. And now that the behavioral economists’ reasoning has been exposed, can we please declare a total media blackout on $1,000 omelets and other gold-plated bullshit?