Chicago fans of foie gras protest city’s force-fed ban
CHICAGO — Don’t come between foodies and their foie gras.
That was the message sent by Chicago diners who dug into foie gras dishes Monday, on the eve of the city’s ban on foie gras. High-end restaurants had special foie gras tastings to protest the ban, and even a few down-home sandwich and pizza joints added it to their menus for the occasion.
At the 676 Restaurant & Bar on Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, chef Robert Gadsby topped foie gras with Pop Rocks candies, wrapped it in prosciutto, and blended it into hot chocolate as part of an “Outlaw Dinner” that also featured such controversial ingredients as wild morels, absinthe, unpasteurized imported cheese, and hemp seeds. While the seven-course, $140 dinner was completely legal, all the ingredients have been banned at some point.
Gadsby called the foie gras ban ridiculous.
“What’s next?” asked Gadsby, who also hosted an Outlaw Dinner last month at his Noe Restaurant & Bar in Los Angeles, where foie gras will be subject to a statewide ban by 2012. “They’ll outlaw truffles, then lobster, beluga caviar, oysters. There are diners who eat to fill a hunger urge, and there are diners who eat to be dazzled. If you take away the luxury ingredients, how can you dazzle them?”
