AR-News: Plagued by activists, foie gras chef changes tune-Article

[Ryan Noah Shapiro]

San Francisco Chronicle

URL: 
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/27/MN273015.DTL

Plagued by activists, foie gras chef changes tune
Kim Severson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, September 27, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle



A prominent Bay Area chef and his partners, staggering under attacks by 
  animal-rights activists, say they will improve conditions at their 
farm near  Stockton where they force-feed ducks to make a French 
delicacy called foie  gras.

The men also have decided that duck products won't be such a key part 
of  the menu at a Sonoma specialty-foods shop they plan to open next 
month.

"We don't have cages, true, but it is not enough," said Didier Jaubert, 
  whose home was attacked by animal-rights extremists in August and who 
is  partners with Aqua chef Laurent Manrique. "There are sometimes 
animals who are  sick, and they need to be taken care of right away. 
There are a set of rules  and regulations, but the idea would be to go 
beyond these rules and have best  production."

The pair's shop, Sonoma Saveurs, was intended to showcase products from 
the  duck farm, but it was vandalized last month by what police are 
calling  domestic terrorists. The attackers broke into the historic 
adobe building on  the Sonoma Plaza and poured cement into drains, 
spray-painted anti-foie-gras  graffiti on virtually every new appliance 
and flooded the building, forcing a  neighboring business to close for 
weeks.

Manrique's Mill Valley house also was targeted. Vandals spray-painted  
messages such as "murderer" and poured acid on his car, and they left a 
  threatening videotape of Manrique's family filmed through the window 
of his  home, warning that he was being watched.

Police have estimated the damage from all the attacks at more than 
$60,000.

Next week, a scientist who specializes in foie gras production will fly 
in  from France to evaluate the farm, looking at how the ducks are 
housed, fed and  slaughtered, Jaubert said.

Meanwhile, Manrique says he is scrambling to control a nightmare that 
seems  to keep getting worse.

The opening of the store has been delayed more than two months, and he 
is  desperate to protect Aqua, the premier downtown San Francisco 
restaurant where  he is the chef -- especially in light of increasing 
national media attention  regarding the way foie gras is made.  "I 
really wanted to remove Aqua from the whole thing," said Manrique, who  
fears that the restaurant's reputation could be hurt or, worse, that 
the  restaurant itself could become a target of vandalism.

Although Aqua serves foie gras from the Sonoma Foie Gras farm, the  
businesses are separate -- a point Manrique says he will continue to 
emphasize  during media interviews. He also has stopped using Aqua's 
public relations  office to handle media calls related to the foie gras 
operation. Sonoma  Saveurs has hired Bay Area public relations man Sam 
Singer, whose clients  include John and Denise DeBartolo York, owners 
of the San Francisco 49ers.

Manrique and his partners originally planned to use the ducks they 
raise at  their Central Valley farm to make foie gras terrines, duck 
burgers and grilled  duck ribs to sell at the Sonoma shop and 
restaurant. The farm already provides  the liver to several top-notch 
Bay Area restaurants.

Now, Jaubert says, the attacks and the subsequent publicity have pushed 
the  store's opening date back to mid-October, and the venture's focus 
has shifted  from foie gras and related products to other gourmet food 
from Sonoma.

And the partners have scrapped their logo, which had depicted a smiling 
  duck.

Ducks and geese naturally gorge themselves to make their livers fatty  
enough to sustain them through migration, but to make foie gras, the 
birds are  force-fed during the last weeks of their lives to fatten 
their livers. At the  two foie gras operations in the United States and 
several in France, metal  tubes are inserted down their throats, and 
grain is pneumatically shot into  their bellies.

In the weeks after the August attacks, animal-rights groups sent The  
Chronicle and other media video and print images purported to be from 
the  Sonoma Foie Gras farm near Stockton. The images, supposedly shot 
by undercover  activists, show injured ducks with blood on their 
feathers, ducks being  attacked by rats and listless birds in cages, 
their beaks stuffed with  regurgitated corn.

Jaubert, whose Santa Rosa home also was attacked in August, says 
animal- rights extremists broke into the farm earlier this month and 
stole four ducks.  Gourmet Cruelty, a Washington-based group, claimed 
responsibility and outlined  the theft on its Web site. Jaubert says he 
doubts that all the video images  were really taken at his farm.

Manrique and Jaubert say they remain committed to a product they say is 
  part of their cultural tradition and defend themselves against the 
activists.

"Basically, the big picture is these people are vegetarian who want no 
one  to eat an animal," Jaubert said. "Foie gras is the first step 
because it is  the weakest link."

E-mail Kim Severson at kseverson at sfchronicle.com .

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle |Feedback

  Page A - 14 
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: text/enriched
Size: 5765 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/ar-news/attachments/20030927/99098bc9/attachment.bin