Chefs say foie gras going strong in final days

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- Saturday is the final day that Californians can legally buy the controversial delicacy foie gras in the state.

In the busy kitchen at Piperade in San Francisco sits the restaurant's very last pound of foie gras. Wait staff say customers have nearly cleaned them out trying to get one last taste of the dish before it's outlawed in California on July 1.

French for "fatty liver," foie gras is made by force-feeding ducks or geese to make their livers grow bigger.

The process has drawn anger from animal rights activists, but support for the law banning the dish is far from unanimous.

The chef at Palio D'asti's is running a get-it-while-you-can foie gras promotion.

"We're feeding the frenzy a little bit by offering $5 foie gras on anything and so we have people who've never had it before coming in to try it," Dan Scherotter said.

At 4505 Meats, owner Ryan Farr is folding the last 100 pounds of his locally-produced foie gras into a french-style pork sausage to meet an avalanche of orders.

"People are going nuts, they just can't get it, can't get enough of it," Farr said.

His biggest regret is the family farm that has sold him foie gras for 10 years is shutting down. He says the farm treats animals humanely.

"These ducks that they raise are taken care of in amazing ways compared to feed lots and other mass produced products," Farr said.

Farr hopes to sell his sausages at the weekend farmer's markets, because after that, he can't sell them at all.

Though, if there's any left over...

"We can eat it; we will eat it all," he said.

The new law came as a result of continuing investigations by the ABC7 News I-Team into how ducks are force fed during the production of foie gras.

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animal, food, laws, san francisco news, jonathan bloom

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