NYC Bans Foie Gras From Restaurants [POLL]

Foie gras — the enlarged liver of ducks or geese — is considered a delicacy. It is also likely something most people have never eaten. Why? Well, it's not cheap. Hudson Valley Foie Gras, located in Sullivan County, sells fresh duck foie gras, weighing 1.75 to 2 pounds, for $127 via their website, making it up to more than $70 dollars a pound.

Foie gras is big business in the culinary world, which made one Hudson Vally duck farm cry "fowl" over New York City's decision to ban the food product because it is thought by some animal rights groups to be made by a cruel process of force-feeding.

The New York City Council voted to ban restaurants and merchants from selling or serving foie gras beginning in 2022. Those caught breaking the rules could face fines of up to $2,000 per violation, though the bill is said to leave room for duck farmers to make similar products via humane methods.

Sullivan County's La Belle Farm called on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to intercede, the Daily News reported.

The company's president, Sergio Saravia, wrote that the law "deals a fatal blow to the duck farmers of New York State."

La Belle Farm is one of only three producers of foie gras in the United States.

According to the New York Times, La Belle Farm and Hudson Valley Foie Gras have around 400 employees, and New York City is about a third of their business.

The legislation dealing the blow to the foie gras business was part of an anti-animal-cruelty package of legislation, also involving horse carriages and trapping wild birds such as pigeons.

Jeremy Blutstein, executive chef of Showfish at Gurney's Star Island Resort & Marina in Montauk, said banning foie gras because of some farming practices was shortsighted, Edible East End reported.

He said he uses Hudson Valley Foie Gras which raises cage-free, hand-fed animals and uses the entire animal creating little-to-no waste.

"But no one wants to ban the caged toxic Hormel or Tyson chicken they picked up on sale at the grocery store, now do they?" he was quoted by Edible East End as saying.

The city of Chicago, Illinois, banned foie gras in 2006, with restaurants and celebrity chefs, such as Anthony Bourdain, pushing back and ridiculing the ban, the Chicago Tribune said. Some restaurant owners continued to serve the product and were fined.

The city reversed the ban two years later.

What the next steps for NYC's ban might be is what happened when California banned the delicacy in 2012. A 2015 court ruling struck it down, but a 2017 court of appeals ruling upheld the ban, Eater New York reported.

Eventually, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the foie gras industry's challenge and California restaurants were once again unable to serve foie gras.

Now it's your turn to weigh in on the issue. Vote in our unscientific poll and tell us what you think in the comments.