Sonoma gourmets face fight over foie gras

By Rone Tempest
Los Angeles Times

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Carlo-Alessandro Cavallo, owner and chef at the celebrated Sonoma Meritage restaurant, likes to serve his foie gras northern Italian-style, wrapped in ravioli and drenched in a white-truffle butter-and-sage sauce.

Needless to say, both chefs were steamed last week when animal-rights advocates presented the Sonoma City Council with a petition to ban foie gras in this capital of wine and haute cuisine.

Drafted by In Defense of Animals, based in Marin County, Calif., the petition contends that the centuries-old process of force-feeding ducks and geese to produce the fattened-liver delicacy constitutes cruelty to animals.

After hearing from both sides, the City Council took no action on the proposal. "We are neither going to debate or vote on the foie gras issue," a testy Mayor Dick Ashford said. City attorneys have even questioned the town's authority to ban a legal food product.

Like it or not, though, this quaint, wine-and-cheese tourist town has become the front line in the ongoing foie gras war.

In Defense of Animals and other groups have focused their attention on Sonoma Foie Gras — one of two major producers in the United States — and several upscale Northern California restaurants in past months.

In August, vandals staged an early-morning attack on Sonoma Saveurs, a new food-specialty shop under construction on the historic Sonoma town square. The building was flooded and the walls defaced with anti-foie gras graffiti.

In Defense of Animals founder Dr. Elliot Katz, a veterinarian, has condemned the attack but said he sympathizes with the motives. "Balanced against the suffering that the animals go through, the vandalism is a minor nuisance," said Katz, a vegan who avoids all meat and leather products.

The vandalism, classified by police as "terrorism," outraged many residents who have helped build the town's image as an upscale culinary tourist destination.

Over the years, town historian Robert Parmelee said, the Sonoma name has been adopted by businesses ranging from carmakers to sausage factories to push their products. Williams-Sonoma, the high-end kitchen products store, was founded in the city and helped promote the image internationally.

"The name goes back to Indian days," Parmelee said. "It's gradually taken on a magical connotation."

Katz said the image also makes Sonoma an ideal venue to present the anti-foie gras message. "Sonoma is a tourist focal point for a lot of people in the Bay Area and from around the country," Katz said. "It also caters to the high end and has a lot of restaurants that serve foie gras. It seemed like an ideal place to make our point."

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