Portland City Council’s recent ban on the sale of foie gras brought up plenty of questions. Some were existential, with readers wondering why council members were spending so much time regulating what people can and can’t eat when the city has so many other problems. Others were practical, such as what exactly foie gras is and how the city will enforce the new rule.
We’ve pulled together some of your most frequent questions, plus a few of our own, with our best attempt to answer each.
So what exactly is foie gras?
Foie gras is the fatty liver of a waterfowl such as a goose or duck (though at Portland restaurants, duck is far more common), in which the organ is enlarged by a traditional force-feeding process known as gavage. Animal rights activists find the practice inhumane, leading to Thursday’s ban on the luxury ingredient.
Wait, people eat this stuff?…