Foie Gras War: Nears Washington

By JULIETTE ROSSANT Let us not forget that the grim stranglehold of anti-foie gras protesters are marching closer and closer to the Nation's capital. As the holiday season nears and peop0le look forward to celebrating with rich delicacies, animal rights activists are busily forcing Maryland restaurants to take foie gras off their menus. Michel Tersiguel of Tersiguel's French Country Restaurant in Ellicott City, Maryland, had a group of activists threaten his business on Dec. 1. They had waged an 18-month email campaign of harassment to get the restaurant to stop using foie gras in their recipes. They sent him videos and propaganda about foie gras, but he did not receive any from groups supporting foie gras. Michel Tersiguel told Super Chef that after escorting the activists to his office he explained to them that the restaurant management had already decided to stop serving foie gras after January 1: They wanted me to sign a pledge not to serve foie gras. I refused. He said that he did not want customers to have to make their way through a picket line. After Rob and Steve Wecker, owners of the Iron Bridge Wine Company with restaurant locations in Maryland and Virginia, received threats in the guise of customer emails, they decided to take foie gras off the menu. Rob spoke to Super Chef: We got three emails, one from a regular customer who was bent out of shape that we serve foie gras. She is a vegetarian: she wanted us to take it off the menu. I didn't respond initially. Then the tone got nastier. She said she would find a way to embarrass us and ruin us. We decided to take it off the menu. Super Chef asked how taking foie gras off the menu would affect the restaurant. Rob Weller said: Our menu is not static, and this doesn’t mean we are going to take it off forever. We still have foie gras on the menu for lunch. We serve foie gras at our other restaurant in Warrenton, Virginia. Sales in our restaurant weren't down. We sold lots of sliders with foie gras. Now it’s a double slider instead of foie gras. He is including foie gras in his New Years Eve, ten-course tasting menu. Only a few customers at either restaurant have complained about the decisions, though Rob reports that his staff was upset: It's not an argument we can win. The email's [that threatened activity] tone was threatening, that is part of the reason that PETA card caring members are extremist. It is kind of sad that they have to do this to get your point across; you catch more flies with honey than vinegar. I don't think business owners should be told what to put on their menus. Rob and Michel told Super Chef that other restaurants in Baltimore have been forced to take foie gras off their menus. PETA seems to have hell-bent-for-leather, distorting George Orwell's Animal Farm with new text between the lines: "All humans may one day equal other animals." Certainly, when it comes to equality for women they seem to have set the clock back -- check out their 2003 pin-up calendar -- or look at this month's ad with Eva Mendes: MTV's polyethylene slave chicks seem to have something to worry about... It seems that such animals are creeping closer, ready to stalk the nation's capital. Watch out Washington, DC: here they come! Related news: Manchester Evening Newsa, Village Voice, Howard Times, Herald, Guardian, Philadelphia Weekly Previous articles: [Foie Gras War - complete] Technorati Tags: superchefblog, Juliette Rossant, super chef, celebrities, chefs, food, restaurants, cooking, branding, cuisine, blogging, food blogging --> back to Super Chef