Let Them Eat Foie

There May Be Hope for Ending the Foie Gras Prohibition … Next Year

Go Lois!
Go Lois! Photo: iStock Photo

Though the California legislature had no time to deal with complaining chefs and their last-minute effort to overturn the foie gras ban, there is hope on the horizon, albeit probably in next year’s legislative session. State Senator Lois Wolk, who voted against the ban when she was in the Assembly in 2004, tells the Sacramento Bee this week not only that she’s personally a fan of foie gras, but also says, “I don’t like single-product bans, period.”

The paper reports that Wolk is “considering authoring legislation in the 2013 legislative session which would repeal the ban,” and she’s happy to hear that chefs “have been very open in how to approach this.”

As you’ve likely already heard, the city of Chicago tried to ban foie gras in 2006, only to have the law overturned two years later.

Also, the article hints that California’s only producer of foie gras, Sonoma Artisan Foie Gras, may have something up their sleeve in terms of a more “humane” or acceptable mode of production, however if that were true it’s surprising that owner Guillermo Gonzalez had not tried to save his business earlier. For now, they have sold out of their foie supply and are ceasing production. But Gonzalez says, “we will apply our entrepreneurial spirit and innovation to whatever venture we undertake.”

For now, you have nine days to eat your fill. Get to it.

Lawmaker may sponsor repeal of California ban on foie gras [Sacramento Bee via Zagat]
Earlier: The End of Foie: 25 Foie Gras Dishes to Try in S.F. Before the Ban
Outlaws: Thirteen Banned Foods We Should Be Able to Eat
A Foie Gras Producer Reflects on an Embattled Decade

There May Be Hope for Ending the Foie Gras Prohibition … Next Year