Taste: Foie Gras, and Why Americans are Queasy About It

The world constantly evolves - in every direction and on every scale.  In the human world, cultures are changing at accelerating rates.  Societies uproot and update old traditions, and in America we're struggling right now with Foie Gras.

What about it?  The Old World practice of force-feeding ducks and geese to produce engorged livers seems barbaric to many.  In 2004 California enacted a law banning its production (going into effect in 2012), and the Chicago City Council made it illegal to sell foie gras in that city in 2006 (the law has since been repealed.)  In the European Union, production has been limited by treaty to those places where it "is currently in practice" and remains a part of a region's cultural heritage.  

Americans are uneasy about this food.  We are re-evaluating its place in modern society, and re-evaluating ourselves.  Guidance on matters of cultural change comes from the Enlightenment. To paraphrase Immanuel Kant:

 Moral principles must . . . be based on concepts of reason, as opposed to particularities of culture or personality.

http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/kantsgrounding/summary.html

If we are not barbarians, we must evolve away from barbaric practices, with the courage that comes from reason.  But how do we evolve without losing important pieces of our cultural fabric?  If we have the power to rip out and re-stitch our culture, who will we become?  The United States is to some degree an experiment along these lines.  New Culture, Adaptive Culture, Fast Changes.  Those are the major themes of our sprawling, untidy, colorful cultural quilt.

But are the new patterns we create based on reason?  Sometimes yes, but I would argue that in most respects we adopt Convenience Culture - which values ease and practicality above all.  Sure, frozen dinners and McNuggets aren't the best for us, but they sure eat quick and keep a body moving.  Yes, Americans work more hours per week on average than citizens in any of the countries in Europe, but we're also impatient people who want what they want when they want it - i.e. Dinner.  By focusing on the value of Convenience, we're able to overlook the machinery that makes it possible.

Do you want to raise chickens?  Does anyone on your block want to raise chickens?  Probably not.  But chicken is tasty, and quick to cook, and cheap to eat, so somebody better be raising a LOT of chickens.  And of course, they are.  Factory farms have notoriously gruesome conditions for chickens, and they're not alone.  When Michael Pollan visited Organic Valley's chicken-raising facility (described in The Omnivore's Dilemma) he describes how even that company has scaled up enormously to meet demand and now resembles many conventional "factory farms." Although they still meet the requirements for organic farming, they have adapted to economies of scale at the expense of chicken quality of life.

And still the majority of American consumers cares more about price and availability than what happens behind the scenes.

So why should foie gras be an issue at all?  After all, you have to look hard for it in the U.S. and it's expensive.  When millions of chickens are brutalized routinely in order to deliver McNuggets at a low cost, who really cares about a hundred thousand French ducks whose livers almost nobody eats? (Statistically speaking, if even 1% of Americans (or Californians) have tasted foie gras one time, I'll eat my hat.)  Consumption of this food remains in the margins of our experience.

I'm no expert on human beings and their behavior.  But I think the problem is solely this: the force-feeding of ducks is not necessary to their basic value as a food source.  Foie gras producers go though all  that work because the result gives people a BIG sensation of pleasure. The kind of pleasure that entices people to spend $50 per pound on liver.

I think one square left in America's quilt still depicts cheerless Puritans eating gruel, without enjoyment but with a righteous and thrifty glow in their cheeks.  Maybe that's part of the problem with McNuggets: tasty and cheap, they keep bodies plump.  That looks like survival to us. . . and we're OK with food being about survival.

We're not so OK with food being about pleasure.

In America, we are told we're obese over-indulgers.  We'd better knock it off, start eating lowfat cottage cheese and work on buffing up our thrifty glow.  Meanwhile, advertisers use images of (sexual) pleasure to sell us McNuggets and energy drinks.  They know we're going to fall off the wagon soon enough.

Pleasure by its nature is biological, amoral, and a powerful predictor of behavior.  We tame it with our reason and judgement, visualizing future consequences in the present moment to help decide whether or not to indulge.  But we are biologically driven to enjoyment.

 Foie gras has been romanticized for good reason - it delivers enjoyment an order of magnitude greater than the tasty tingle of a McNugget in sweet-n-sour sauce.  Take just a spoonful of the fat left over from cooking foie gras, and cook a russet potato in it, and you can transform that spud into an aromatic earthly delight.  Eat a piece of the liver itself, and you may experience a minutes-long flavor sensation and deep brain-stem satisfaction that tends to leave people speechless.

Pleasure that big can be life-changing.  Pleasure like that can make you turn down gas-station sandwiches and fast-food forever.  It can make you sane.  Sane enough to decide to enjoy what goes into your body, and thereby seek out food that feels Good to you.  Pleasure.  Why don't more of us value it?