Rick Steves’ July 8 column, “The Geese of Dordogne” is unfortunately misleading. He relates his witnessing of “le gavage” in a french geese farm in a detached manner, defending the practice along with the farmers; he makes it sound as if the geese are happy and serene to go through this horrible process of being force-fed three times a day by pumping corn through a tube deep down their throat. Perhaps Steves has been served a glass of Denis and Nathalie Mazet’s best wine before witnessing the abuse taking place on this “idyllic farm.”
These French people have indeed convinced Steves that everything they do is humane and unstressful for the geese. It’s their livelihood. They want to make sure that the tourists visiting their farm will continue to buy and eat foie gras, this abomination produced by fattening the livers of these poor birds.
As a native of France I have witnessed le gavage and eaten foie gras in my childhood. I have fortunately evolved. I find the practice today appalling and very cruel. It is so unnatural.
Because of the cruelty involved in the process, several countries in Europe have banned the production and sale of foie gras, including Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Poland and lately Israel. Last year, the city of Chicago enacted its own foie gras ban and by the year 2012 the sale and production of foie gras will be illegal in the state of California. It is not soon enough. It is time to stop this barbaric and disgusting practice.
Claudine Erlandson
Shoreline
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