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As part of their long-running campaign to ban foie gras, PETA has launched their "Fine Faux Foie Gras Challenge." The animal rights group hopes top chefs will join their effort to ban the force-feeding of geese, and to sweeten the deal, they're offering a $10,000 prize for the best vegetarian faux foie gras that's "comparable in taste and texture to the real glob of prized bird fat." Sarah DiGregorio at the Voice nominates the portobello mousse at chef Amanda Cohen's Dirt Candy (friend of Gothamist). The critic cautions that while Cohen's mousse is not as delicious as actual livers from force-fed ducks, "it's awfully tasty, and inventive too." But what to call the stuff? Grub Street fears "Tofoie," or "Champignon Gras" lack the cachet demanded by a delicacy derived from ducks and geese with painfully engorged livers. (Detect any bias on this one?)
PETA Offers $10K For Best Faux Foie Gras
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I think PETA isn't using the right approach. If they want people to drop foie gras (which I agree is the product of torture), they need to make it from less cruelly treated animals. A vegetarian version isn't going to take off.
I don't touch the stuff, but I'm pretty sure it's quite far away from mashed beans & mushrooms. However great it may taste to many people. :-)
I make my own Foie Gras with ducks I keep in my basement. I strap their legs and wings to metal cages so they can hardly move (Can't have them burn off too many calories now ;-) don't we? ) Each duck as their own feeding tube stuffed into their throats continuously feeding them lard stuffs and corn to ensure maximum plumpness of their soon to be very tender & tasty livers. Then I beat them regularly with a wooden mallet, mostly over the head.
Do beating the ducks improve the taste of the Foie Gras? No, but it gives me a great work out. Peta should cite my technique as humane as it should be a model other suppliers should strive for.
Did you forget to blunt their beaks with a hot wire? Works like a charm and helps keep the tube in their gullets.
Ha, ha! Torture. So funny... :S
Regarding a name foe the veggie version: why not just Faux Gras?
They can't just point out how utterly disgusting and foul foie gras is?
yes, when i first learned about this thing all i could think was who the hell would want to eat an overworked liver. gross
Hannibal Lecter
I can't imagine why anyone would want to eat this stuff. It's horribly cruel. But whatever.
The flaw in Peta's plan t is that to do this well, said chefs would need to sample a lot of foie gras in order to get this right. No? And then wouldn't that run against their desire? Wouldn't people have to sample both to determine who should win?
F YOU peta
What's next to be banned? Chopped liver?
The facts, who never had facts but only hatred toward the weak and defenseless. NO wonder he is a carriage driver. they are so ignorant and so hateful
Also Thefacts is a zionist.
People's ignorance and apathy is the reason why our society has so much cruelty including against animals. It is sick to make cruel jokes and show how sick and eveil some readers are here.
Foie gras is delicious. Just wondering, all all you haters vegans?
Especially with strawberries and balsamic reduction...mmmm. Seriously, you have to try it. But, you know, with the fake stuff.
that was supposed to be "are all you haters vegans?"
why are all the haters and animal abusers the first to comment on such stories against animal cruelty. sickening.
I guess I have been vegetarian too long, I didn't even know what foie gras was. now that I do it seems like a bum out.
Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. ~Albert Einstein
the lies are from center of consumer freedom ( lobbyists from the dairy, fur, meat, tobacco etc _) who are killing animals and children. they put poison in our meals. Children are dying from obesity. PETA helps animals but in the long run they are stopping these corporate terrorist from destroying our planet, our health, our humanity
PETA are just a group of nuts and their radical tactics are mostly driving away people from the real issue. I rank them as effective as NAMBLA as one of the worst organizations ever! Anyone supporting them need their heads examined.
Time to have my hearty bacon and sausage sandwich!
I hate to agree, but the radical activities that keep PETA in the public eye only serve to turn a lot of people off. However, this particular promotion is targeting the right audience and doesn't go off the deep end. Let's hear it for moderation!
Jen 6 hit the nail on the head, Faux Gras sounds perfect.
most of the people who attack PETA are those that profit from the cruelty of animals. we can't never agree with any org 100% but the point is how this animal abusers don't address the cruelty but can only attack those that want to end the cruelty.
ok, you hate peta, i get it.
but for once this is something that isn't radical & isn't hurting anyone, can you take a break from your bacon & sausage sandwich to admit that?
Isn't this a bit like complaining about the fuel economy in a Rolls Royce rather than looking at the average gas mileage of the cars and trucks 99% of population is driving?
It seems to me the cruelty that's happening in factory farms that raise chickens, beef, and pork is far more important and much more relevant to most people's lives, not to mention obviously worse than what's happening on any foie gras farm. After all, only a fraction of the country has ever even tasted foie gras, let alone eats it on a regular occasion, so why focus all your efforts on that?
What's the deal with that PETA supporters? Do you just want to make some noise or do you actually want to solve a problem?
people are never going to some eating meat (even when i lived with my vegetarian girlfriend i had burgers for lunch) but this is a ridiculously cruel food that should be easy to abolish because it's so small.
in other words, they can actually solve a problem instead of just make noise.
I would say people aren't going to stop eating foie gras either - how many times has an outright ban on any product in this country actually worked? In fact, the short lived ban in Chicago just galvanized people into eating more of it. A more realistic goal seems to influence production standards where you can have the health community, organic movement, and other partners on your side. Those people don't care about foie gras because it doesn't have a meaningful impact on their goals.
Amen. PETA's main concern seems to be bolstering the identity of the organization and its members, rather than actually improving the lives of animals. It's all noise that is easily tuned out. If you really want to help improve the welfare of as many animals as possible, support the Humane Society.
I love PETA posts. Everyone gets angry.
The flaw in this competition lies in its concept. By trying to imitate Foie Gras exactly you are tacitly agreeing that it is delicious.
A veggie burger cannot replicate a hamburger, but can be a different kind of delicious.
the problem could be solve by doing nothing. Don't eat it but people are too involved with only themselves and don't care about the impact on others. That is why we should have a ban but Christine Quinn, the fat disgusting redhead, doesn't permit the bill to be hear.
I have yet to meet a PETAphile who was as kind to humans as they are to animals.
@thefacts, you are probably a pedophile
I just love the way that some people take something as subjective as the way something tastes and try to impose their feelings about on the rest of us.... or people who think that by eating hamburger, they are somehow morally superior to those of us who occasionally enjoy a bit of foie gras. You eat flesh, you are complicit in the killing of that animal.
Foie gras is low-hanging fruit. Easy to pick on, expensive, seen as elitist. Ever see the way laying hens are treated? How about the pigs that are sliced up into your morning bacon? Only true vegans have a right to get into this argument. I've hunted, dressed, cooked & eaten game and, until you quit all forms of flesh eating (and wearing) you have no right to ctiticize & condemn anyone.
Foie gras is delicious. Really, really delicious. That's why people have been paying lots of money for it since the time of the Romans. I've worked with Chefs whose foie gras dishes were better than most of the sex you've probably had. Yeah... that good. Really.
Thank you sir. Scapegoating a largely inacessible gourmet item to expiate our guilt over the common everyday crap that pushes fat and cholestrol through the food supply pipeline and into our waistlines is what so much of this skullduggery is all about.
Even if it's vegetarian foie gras, you can still add bacon, right?