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Wolfgang Puck has joined in the campaign to cash in on the notoriety surrounding the myth of duck abuse and coincidentally drive US foie gras producers out of business. G-d I hate this crap. This is all about his need to make money by stoking the media machine while pandering to credulous consumers who know absolutely nothing about how foie gras is produced and who consciously or not, resent the "elites" who love it.
Also makes me wonder if he’s going to make sure that all of the animals he uses in his factory produced cuisine are slaughtered humanely. We’ll see.
Thanks to Shannon for the heads up on this.
Oh, PLEEEEEEEEEEEAASSE! Like he hasn’t been serving foie all along? Hypocrite!
I disagree. You really think Wolfgang needs to make more money? I would guess he is doing very well for himself. Why not lose some of the cynicism and consider that maybe he has “caught a conscience”, and considers the production of foie gras rather barbaric? It took me 45 years to grasp that the meat I eat comes from factory farms, and that the animals there suffer tremendously. Sometimes the disconnect required for an animal lover to eat certain animal products disppears as we age – I am proud of Wolfgang Puck for taking a stand.
The issue for him is more than just foie gras – I recommend you visit this link to read up on all the changes he is making, including serving only sustainable seafood.
http://hsus.org/farm/news/ournews/wolfgang_puck_animal_welfare.html
This is not about making money, it’s about making an effort to do the right thing – I think it’s also called “progress”.
Oh yes, and one more thing, there is no need to insult conscientious consumers. I think anyone who wants to know how foie gras is produced can see a video of such online in an instant. Force feeding geese until their livers are close to exploding is not exactly ‘humane’.
http://www.nofoiegras.org/
There is no resentment of the “elites” who love it evident in the efforts to ban it, merely a caring for the animals. As I said, if you love animals, a certain ‘disconnect’ is required to eat them. If you ever lose it, your life will change completely.
And what does Wolfgang propose to do about working conditions for farm workers. You know who they are, right, the PEOPLE who work in the fields for a pittance.
When do we start caring about them?
I think a certain disconnect is required to “love” animals so much that they no longer seem tasty.
I hope he’s also going to ban servers with Hepatitis A from working his big parties, too. In fact, I wonder about the timing of his big “ban” on foie gras … could it be to deflect not only from the Hepatitis scare, but his apparent refusal to admit anything about it?
Friggin’ hypocrite. Why not rail against how other animals are being treated in our industrial food processes? Or how immigrant farm workers and immigrant butchers are treated? Or how immigrant waitstaff and cooking staff are treated. Foie is so important?
Give me a break!
@Gabrielle
He didn’t say “conscientious consumers”, he said “credulous consumers”, as in those who believe without all the information.
I’m 52 years old, and I’ve never had foie (or caviar for that matter), but I don’t consider those who enjoy it to be elite. I just have no interest in eating these things.
However, I don’t buy Smithsfield products: I know where my pork comes from (I’ve seen it alive). I think we should do the best we can with what we eat, and leave everyone else alone. US culture is not the only culture.
where’s bourdain on this?
Feh. Maybe he just hasn’t been getting enough media coverage and needed the attention.
Hundreds of thousands of chef’s and cooks do not serve it. Millions of people do not eat it. Do they get headlines for this? Of course not. He could have just stopped serving it. That’s what a conscientious sympathizer does I believe.
I find this attention seeking disgusting. Puck is a brand. He wants the hysterics to love his brand. Will he now stop serving the other meats and fish? I don’t think so.
Hard to not thing that the HSUS really just wants us all to become vegetarians or maybe vegans. Hard to not think Puck needed some publicity. Thank god for foie gras. Easy to get people to rally around it since most people don’t eat it. (Liver? ewww) And a hot button topic so you get maximum exposure.
I love sustainable agriculture and think that end is applause worthy. But I might find it more applaud worthy if he were only serving organic sustainable food rather than just featuring it or banning products.
Latenac, you hit it on the head there. Even the laziest of consumers can rally behind the anti-foie banner, because it’s not something they eat or would even want to eat. It’s an easy way for them to feel good about themselves.
Start challenging how the cows and chickens are farmed to provide Mickey D’s with Big Yacks and Chicken Mcsuckits, and it would be a different story.
I’d have to argue the folks who are slamming Puck for the attention-whoring. He didn’t ask to be targeted by the animal-rights activist groups on this issue. It’s hard to say if he’s making the change now because of the pressure or because he really is concerned, but the public statement (as opposed to just doing it quietly) had to be done to get these folks off his back.
Also, Puck’s soups sell mostly in health food stores where I live (Toronto) and I suspect that’s the case elsewhere as well. It would be really stupid to alienate a huge part of his customer base. After all, he’s not making his restaurants vegan, just sourcing his product from somewhere with better conditions. There will still be the same meat dishes as always, only from humane sources. Who can argue with that? Does anyone really want their chicken to be sick and insane when it goes to slaughter?
“Chicken McSuckits”…LMAO! That’s an awesome name.
It’s funny how people get morally correct AFTER they’ve made their money! I’m not elitist, or wealthy, but I enjoy foie simply because my eastern european grandparents served it when the goose got gone.
I believe it was Paula Wolfert who said: “I’d rather be a force fed duck than a Zacky chicken.”
I’m sorry that Wolfy has been frog-marched down the Charlie Trotter path.
I’m temporarily in NYC and I think I’ll walk next door to Les Halles and have their Rossini burger out of revenge.
What I want to know is just how much foie Puck was moving before this. It doesn’t seem like it would appeal to his target audience. Is this “moral stand” really just a way to amp up what is otherwise a routine shelving of a poorly-selling product?
I’ve done the research, and on balance, it seems to me that ducks destined to provide foie have a hell of a better life than, say, factory-farmed pigs. One would think that if one were truly concerned about animal welfare and sustainability, one would start here, where a huge number of animals are treated poorly and consumers can actively vote with their dollars to enact change.
Starting with foie instead is a media move. The vast majority of Americans, having never tasted foie, can get behind the ban without any personal sacrifice.
I invite you to consider what would happen if your average anti-foie person stopped by their local fast-food restaurant only to discover their favorite meal cost $2 extra due to being made with free-range meats.
I know some people are anti-foie as an animal rights issue, and/or as a human health issue. I respect those stances wholeheartedly. On balance, though, I think most of the anti-foie movement by celebrity chefs/pundits/media is about old-fashioned politics and greed, nothing more.
Kal, the foie gras thing is only 1 of 9 total points outlined in Puck’s plan. Among the other items is no pig gestation crates, no eggs from battery caged hens, no veal crates, and only humanely raised poultry (as determined by third party audit).
It’s funny how “foodies” now have such an exaggerated recoil and backlash response to any bit of news which is anti-foie.
I’ll give Puck credit that MAYBE he actually has grown a conscience and wants to fight the good fight regarding sustainable Agriculture and humane animal raising and slaughter…
However, I definately see the other side of it. California Cuisine has sagged (Puck’s restaurants have lost their newness, they are old hat and commonplace these days.) but their prices have not.
Appealing to the crowd who wants to eat more sustainable, humanely raised food/animals involves a willingness to pay higher costs.
This might be a way to hlp him increase his prices and bolster the uniqueness of his business.
As for his soup lines… Still decent compared to other canned soups, still expensive, and available in every major grocery market chain in california. I’d much rather make a pot of Bear Creek dry soup mixes than a can of Pucks, tho.
Hi Lou, I didn’t say that Ruhlman used the expression “conscientious consumers”, that was my expression. I know he wrote “credulous”. And I am well aware that the USA’s culture is not the only in the world (just like it’s not our culture to practice female genital mutilation, but hey, in some cultures it’s standard), but why can’t a chef choose what products he will and will not serve in his establishments? Would you slam him for choosing only organic produce? Sustainable seafood? No more veal raised in crates? No pork from producers using getation crates for breeding sows? No? And why not? Isn’t he taking away business from the larger commercial factory farmers?
This foie gras issue really seems to get foodies all hopped up, but I can’t see why. Eat it if you want, you just can’t go to Puck’s place to eat it. Big fooking deal, you know?
The HSUS is holding him up as a shining example in the culinary world, shining to those in favor of animal rights and especially humane farming. The HSUS is not shoving vegetarianism down anyone’s throats (yet), they are no PETA, but they are advocates for larger pens and cages for the livestock, and for all humane animal farming practices, i.e. no goose liver enlarging due to force feeding.
This reminds me of the initial cigarette smoking bans, and how smokers freaked out when they could no longer smoke inside public buildings, or on airplanes. Now it’s standard, and fairly accepted, if unhappily. There may be a day when all animals raised for their meat are treated humanely, and would this really be so horrible?
I’m a former meat eater, and meat LOVER, so I can relate to wanting to eat whatever a person wants to eat, be it guinea pig, dog, cat, or calf that’s been raised in a pen and not allowed to move at all before it’s been slaughtered. Hell, I loved veal, and pork, but I never tried foie gras, it’s true. Still, I defend YOUR and everyone else’s right to eat what you want, just as I would defend the animal’s right to a decent existence on this planet, not subject to undue suffering. You dig?
18 comments since I first posted my comment this morning. Not one mentioned farm workers.
Not one.
What does that say about us?
I guess he’d like us all to just enjoy more “veg-e-taabels”, now that he’s done making his fortune serving it all these years.
OK szg:
“And what does Wolfgang propose to do about working conditions for farm workers. You know who they are, right, the PEOPLE who work in the fields for a pittance.
“When do we start caring about them?”
I actually don’t know who they are. Can you tell me about them, and their plight, and what you propose that we do to make things better?
[Also, the reason nobody has responded to you is not because everyone here is a heartless bastard who cares more about a chicken than a living, breathing human being. It's because this is a food blog, and the thread is about Wolfgang Puck and animal welfare. Your comment is therefore somewhat off topic.]
Actually Steve, this isn’t necessarily JUST a food blog. I think SZG has a valid point.
@B
Actually, it was del Grosso, not Ruhlman, but I certainly agree with everything else you wrote.
I dig.
I live in Puerto Rico, and we are slow to change. We raise and slaughter animals the way we have been doing for the last couple of hundred years. The animals live well, and we waste nothing.
In a way, we’re lucky. Almost all of our food is produced locally (I still get my apples from Washington state), but all meat and vegetables are local, and we grow much of it (the vegetables that is) ourselves.
By the way, I’m totally against female genital mutilation, and male genital mutilation as well.
a few weeks ago i saw wolf p on the home shopping network hawking another set of his pans to lonely housewives and divorced men who will buy them and never use them. it made me sick to see this guy who did so much for us (professional chefs) years ago, so bent on squeezing another buck out of the consuming public. he looked desperate and slightly touched in the head, like a gaurd at auschwitz with the allies approaching. he knew he was doing something wrong but he was so engrossed in his own bullshit that he could not help himself. belive it or not it was sad. what a whore he has become. it was about to really get to me when he wrapped it up with 10,000 sales in the hour. he was very proud. i rationalized the money and the fame and the ‘why the fuck not’ theory of wether i would do the same. still none of it seemed right to me. he cheapens me and i felt like telling him that to his face. i was really down and just when i thought i could not get any lower who put his boot on my emotional neck, pressed my head furhter into the grime? everybody’s favorite poster boy for culinary prostitution, todd english. a line of hoopty plates and cheesey serving vessels and all for the introductory price of… it was sick. i remember 10 years ago seeing todd english on the martha stewart show where he was making some cracker crust pizza with fois and caramelized shallots and he said to her ‘just as in the real world, in my kitchen you can never be too rich or too thin.’ even then i thought he was an asshole. one thing left to say to a guy like that, and all the rest of ‘em for that matter, fuck you dude!
Whoops, I just digested the fact that Ruhlman is away and these are Bob’s posts. Doh!
You know, the worst foie gras I’ve ever eaten was at a Puck restaurant (charred beyond belief on the outside, dry & mealy on the inside-I was actually embarrased for the poor guy who made it when I sent it back, it was that bad). Maybe it’s a good thing he’s going to stop using it!
PUCK WOLFGANG!!!
…anyone who has actually BEEN TO FRANCE and SEEN ducks being prepped to become foie donors would know that the process is simply one of mimicking the duck’s own natural pre-migratory eating behavior.
Foie was originally discovered when hunters found that wild geese and ducks they caught just before the birds annual migration had naturally occuring…foie!
Some guy here on Northern CA. (probably Sonoma) is working on…get this (tee-hee-hee %^)
“consensual foie gras”.
Just the image that concept brings to mind – not to mention the plethora of dirty jokes and puns -Well, it makes me proud to say I’m from Berkeley, in the heart of the Land of Fruits and Nuts…
I just graduated from culinary school last week (Today I am a (unemployed) Pastry Chef!)and my greatest regret (besides my massive debt and my school year weight gain)is that I will no longer be able to bribe the nice Spanish speaking gentleman at the school’s supply loading dock for torchons of foie in exchange for chocolate truffles containing liquor.
i must comment on wolfgang puck. the sushi served in his orlando, florida restaurant is hands down the most disgusting piece of fish i’ve EVER had. i can’t stand the man or his food.