Foie-gras fans eat hearty as ban nears in Chicago

CHICAGO — These are dangerous times for waterfowl in Chicago.

With the city's ban on foie gras — a delicacy made of duck and goose liver — days away from going into effect, upscale restaurants in the city are serving it up like never before. They've put together special menus featuring it in course after course — searing it, chilling it, tossing it into salads and turning it into sauce.

At the same time, foie-gras enthusiasts are cooking up a lawsuit to keep it on menus or put it back after the ban takes effect Aug. 22, holding fundraisers to finance their fight and asking diners to sign petitions in support of it.

And those diners? They're savoring it a lot more — or at least more often — than they would have had the City Council not sided with animal-rights activists in April by banning it. Many consider the production of foie gras cruel because the geese and ducks are force-fed to make their livers bigger.

"There are other things I might have ordered, but I thought, I'm on the clock," said Ben Goldhirsh, a mortgage banker who recently enjoyed the extensive "Foie Gras, Farewell To Our Good Friend" menu at the restaurant MK.

Mario Lara, a sales rep who bought a table at a foie-gras fundraiser at Cyrano's Bistrot & Wine Bar, said: "They're going too far when they're telling you what to eat, what not to eat. This is America."

More than a dozen countries, mostly in Europe, have banned production of the delicacy.

Given animal-rights activists' success getting foie gras banned in Chicago, Didier Durand, the chef and owner of Cyrano's, says he thinks they will take aim at other foods as well. "Pretty soon we're going to be eating grass," he said.

That helps explain why a group of distributors, producers, processors and others in the business have formed the North American Foie Gras Association and hired a lobbyist to make their case as other cities, including Philadelphia, contemplate following Chicago's lead. And why Durand helped found Chicago Chefs for Choice to raise money to fight the ban.

Not every chef agrees. One of Chicago's most famous, Charlie Trotter, took foie gras off the menu at his namesake restaurant after seeing how it is produced.

Nobody is suggesting that exclusive restaurants will pull up stakes and head to the suburbs. But many Chicago chefs say that in their world of four-star restaurants, the ban will have an effect.

"When things like this happen, it makes the city look silly," said Jean Joho, the chef at Everest. "Colleagues around the world are laughing. They definitely make jokes about Chicago."