What to eat?

[watervole]

Went out for a meal last night with the morris team.  Lovely meal, good food, great atmosphere, good company.  Hard to better that.

Only one very small fly in the ointment:  My starter was a duck terrine, which was excellent.  There was something in it, the occasional teaspoon size lump of something creamy and stunningly delicious.  Like liver, but very mild and with a hint of mushroom and a flavour I'd never encountered before but really liked.  Curious, I asked the waiter afterwards if he could tell me what it was.   He said it was the fois gras.

Rats.  That sadly means that I'll probably never taste it again.  Fois gras is on my list of foods that I avoid for ethical reasons.  (It's produced by force-feeding geese - though I gather there is a more expensive version that produces limited seasonal quantities by killing geese that have fattened themselves just before migrating).

Ah well - at least I have some understanding of why gourmets fight so hard to continue eating it.  I disagree with them, but at least I know where they are coming from.

For those who may be curious, other foods I avoid include veal (cruelty in production), skate (badly over-fished), eggs that aren't free range (I try and get organic as the welfare standard is higher than for free-range) and pretty much any fish that is a top predator (all over-fished and with slow reproduction rates).

Comments

[julesjones]

I had fois gras at a French friend's birthday dinner earlier this year. I decided that since it was there anyway, I might as well take the opportunity to try it and see what all the fuss is about, since for ethical reasons I'm never going to voluntarily buy it myself. And couldn't for the life of me work out why all the fuss about what a delicacy it is. I can only think that it's yet another one of the tastes where having a supertaster's skewed palette does strange things to likes and dislikes. So it's oddly reassuring to have someone I *know* isn't going to make excuses say that yes, it really is that delicious.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between "white veal" where the production is awful, and "pink" veal, which is what is mainly produced in the UK, and where the calves are not crated etc.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

indeed. I should have made the distinction.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

My boycott list is much the same as yours -- I also add lobster and fresh crab on grounds of cruelty. We try to buy only free range meat and sustainable fish. And I try to be good about airmiles, but it's hard. Food get scarier and scarier...

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

I have problems worrying about airmiles where fair trade is affected. Plus there is a greater carbon footprint created by buying the same goods grown in a Dutch heated polytunnel than grown in African open air and then flown in.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I figure that global warming will hit the world's poor even more than unfair trade will. Thus, I buy Fairtrade products that can be shipped by sea, like chocolate, but try and avoid as much overseas produce (including stuff grown in heated polytunnels when I can spot it) as possible.

[gaspodia.livejournal.com]

I like to know where my food comes from and have a similar boycott list. I adore crab and lobster, but won't eat it unless I know how it got to my plate.

I don't eat much meat; for most of my formative years our meals were mostly vegetarian with chicken or fish once a week at the most and I still prefer this. Organic meat/fish/poultry once a week is infinitely more enjoyable than tasteless mass produced meat every day.

I also avoid food with high food miles, but it's more for selfish taste reasons :)

Vegetable aim: buy local, buy organic.
Meat aim: buy humanely killed, buy local, buy organic.

[watervole.livejournal.com]

I've gone about 80% veggie. I eat rabbit now and then as you really can't get a more environmentally friendly (and low fat) meat.

I use an organic box for veg - excellent value (and they never air freight and try to UK source whenever they can).

I think you're doing all the high Brownie point things. Way to go!

[temeres.livejournal.com]

Well, you know where I stand on foie gras. And veal. Exactly where I stand on beef, ham, pork, bacon, lamb, chicken, turkey, duck, rabbit, fish...

Ban 'em all.