New York City Sued Over Illegal Foie Gras BanHudson Valley foie gras producers are not taking New York City's guff sitting down.
BAYLEN LINNEKIN
6.4.2022
A lawsuit filed last month in a New York court seeks to prevent New York City's foie gras ban from taking effect this coming November, on Black Friday. The suit challenging the ban was filed by Hudson Valley Foie Gras (HVFG) and La Belle Farm, which together "produce virtually all of the foie gras" that's made in America. The plaintiffs seek to enjoin New York City from implementing the ban while they mount a broader legal challenge to overturn the ban entirely.
Foie gras, as I've explained many times, is the French term for fatty duck or goose liver. Farmers fatten the birds' livers through a time-honored feeding process known as gavage, which capitalizes on these birds' natural instinct to gorge themselves before migrating. Chefs, in turn, create some amazing dishes using foie gras as a main ingredient.
Animal-rights groups, a driving force behind New York's ban, claim the process of producing foie gras is cruel. The farmers who produce foie gras, the chefs who cook with it, and the diners who enjoy it disagree.
Before the New York City Council chose sides and voted on the ban, HVFG invited council members and their staff to tour the farm and see how they produce foie gras. None came.
A lawsuit challenging the ban has been widely anticipated and welcomed, as I explained shortly after the city council implemented the ban.
"We will fight," Ariane Daguin of leading foie gras seller D'Artagnan, based in New Jersey, told me in 2019.
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Source:
https://reason.com/2022/06/04/new-york-city-sued-over-illegal-foie-gras-ban/
