Print'Foie You' Sandwich from Picnic Caterers in New Jersey
It’s one thing when an animal rights group launches an informational campaign. It’s another when they threaten to send pamphleteers and picketers to your establishment if you don’t stop serving foie gras.
That’s what happened to Christine Nunn at Picnic Caterers, as Jason Perlow from Off the Broiler reports, after she used foie gras at the Ultimate Chef Bergen County competition. Feeling this letter from the Farm Sanctuary was a bit out of line—particularly as she took pains to use foie gras from Hudson Valley, a farm that prides itself on humane animal treatment—she created a culinary answer: The “Foie You” Sandwich.
Available just this week, and sold for $24 when ordered in advance, the sandwich is a triple-duck whammy (see a full photo spread here). A fresh croissant is layered with a house-made blackberry-balsamic jam, spread with a foie gras terrine, then topped with D’Artagnan smoked duck breast, sliced pear, and a seared slice of Hudson Valley Foie Gras. Proceeds are donated to local charity Center for Food Action. No word yet on the picket lines.
Picnic Caterers
180 Kinderkamack Road, Emerson NJ 07630 (map)
201-262-5505
picniccaterers.com
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
21 Comments:
If I were anywhere near the east coast, I'd buy a few of those sandwiches in support - right now! I love it!! Fois you, too!
Bravo!!!
Cheers,
~ Paula
Paula Maack at 12:00PM on 04/22/09
MY GOODNESS THAT SOUNDS TASTY!!!
DELICIOUS at 1:12PM on 04/22/09
this totally caught my eye the other day among the photograzing pics. hell yeah!
dmarina at 1:41PM on 04/22/09
mr guy at 1:56PM on 04/22/09
that's awesome!
i get so tired of animal rights groups.
way to stand up for yourself!
i wish i was closer to order it too...
gastronomeg at 3:02PM on 04/22/09
Unfortunately, you had to have placed your order for the sandwich yesterday, April 21st.
Bosmer at 3:44PM on 04/22/09
FYI:
Christine wanted me to tell everyone that the Foie You will be available for Friday pickup if you place orders by noon tomorrow.
Picnic will offer the sandwich weekly via special order until demand subsides.
jperlow at 4:13PM on 04/22/09
Lolll! I love this :P I'd get some myself if I was in the area. Those animal rights groups go too far sometimes.
Chocolatesa at 4:43PM on 04/22/09
DAMN that sounds like a good sandwich.
marchpane at 5:03PM on 04/22/09
@Chocolatesa - I'm in total agreement. There have even been instances in California where a chef's family has been threatened because of his use of Foie Gras. Another great "Foie You" was done by Chef Damien Brasel of Knife & Fork Restaurant in NYC. After picketers wouldn't stop protesting outside of his restaurant, telling customers that his food was "unclean" and "unethical," and just generally harassing the poor guy, Brasel created a Foie Gras tasting menu in spite of them all!
pastry262 at 5:44PM on 04/22/09
So did David Chang at all his momofuku restaurants.
simon at 7:00PM on 04/22/09
Foie you Christine.
As great as it is that Hudson Valley "prides itself on humane animal treatment" a quick glance at their website doesnt suggest its a top concern (read: not mentioned) let alone that they actually produce 'ethical foie gras', though I would love to be proved wrong.
I just cant support food that comes from an animal that suffered its entire life. Im sure karma will dole out the justice in due course.
nikonratm at 9:03PM on 04/22/09
Christine, you go girl! Some anti-foie types vandalized a restaurant in the DC area last month, but of course, they did it in the dead of night, anonymously, making their stance seem about as meaningful as lighting a bag of poop on a doorstep and running away.
Now I want one of those "Foie You" 'wiches.
chanterelle at 11:15PM on 04/22/09
As it is, there is no such thing as humane foie gras, so I just can't support serving it.
But I don't approve of harassment, even in the name of animal rights, and I wish activists would stop killing their cred with stupid stunts.
piccola at 11:53PM on 04/22/09
Okay, I'm going to wade into this, probably foolishly.
Foie Gras is tasty, I'll admit. I've had it before.
But a food-stuff that requires force-feeding (usually with a tube inserted down the throat of the goose) is not worth it. Kittens might be tasty. Baby squirrels might be tasty. Hell, human babies might be delicious. But I'll never know.
If we eat animals, we have an obligation to make their lives as happy as possible before they're butchered. Geese are intelligent creatures and excellent parents. Could you live without the flavour of exploded liver? Could you let them live and be killed mercifully, enjoy the meat, and not torture them beforehand (for torture it is).
Bragging about your meat consumption is an internet meme that is well past its prime. (I eat raw lion for breakfast, and wash it down with horse tears. I'm hard, me!) All I'm saying is that exploding a goose's liver for the purposes of a spread maybe isn't a great idea.
NotAmerican at 2:32AM on 04/23/09
First of all, American foie is produced from ducks, not geese. Just clarifying that point.
Second, I recommend everyone on both sides of this issue read Foie Gras Wars by Marc Caro for a very interesting history of the product and its production.
Foie gras is not "exploded liver". Foie gras was first discovered by folks who caught and slaughtered geese prior to migration. Those livers were engorged and fatty due to the geese gorging themselves prior to their seasonal migration. When geese and ducks are heavily fed their livers become fatty and swollen, but they do not explode.
American foie gras is produced from ducks that are not caged. They are hand-handled during the feeding process. Hudson Valley foie gras provides incentives to their workers (one team is responsible for feeding the same batch of ducks through the process) to ensure that the ducks are cared for and treated well.
Ducks that are raised for foie gras production have much longer lives than any chicken raised for meat. I have an obligation to myself and to the animals that have given their lives for my dinner to treat them with respect and honor: use every part of the animal, cook the meat well and consume it in good company. Our food web is just that, a web: everything is interconnected. If you eat any animal products you are part of that cycle, perhaps in ways you don't even realize. Don't eat foie, but eat duck breasts? Where do you think the duck breasts came from? Could be from a duck raised for foie gras. Think veal is inhumane, but drink milk? Where do think all the male calves born to dairy cows go? Right-o, veal production.
If groups like Farm Sanctuary truly wanted to make an impact on overall animal welfare in this country, they should go after battery chicken producers like Tyson or Purdue - who treat their chickens far worse than any foie gras duck and who kill thousands more animals annually. It's much easier to go after small business owners who don't have the financial resources to fight back.
maryr123 at 2:28PM on 04/23/09
In gavage based foie gras production, the liver expands to two to three times its normal size. I'd call that exploding. An enlarged liver is never a good thing...ask your local alcoholic.
And I am totally against battery chicken methods...I keep the little lovelies. But something doesn't cease to be wrong because something else is more wrong.
Watch a video of a goose (or as you said a duck in America) with a funnel shoved down its throat having a mixture of grain and fat pumped into it and tell me that's okay, because it makes it extra tasty after it's been killed. Would you eat milk-fed veal? It tastes better than the pink stuff apparently. Does that make it okay?
NotAmerican at 2:38AM on 04/24/09
Yes I do eat milk-fed veal. What do you calves eat? Milk. Well-cared for, milk-fed calves produce delicious meat.
You're right, I totally agree that something doesn't cease to be wrong because something else is more wrong. However, I don't actually think that the way American ducks are fed through gavage is inhumane or wrong.
maryr123 at 7:26AM on 04/24/09
'Milk-fed' generally refers to veal calves fed nothing but formula, kept in tight wooden pens so they cant exert themselves, with nothing metallic around so they get no iron at all. Calves generally don't get their mother's milk...it's too valuable.
The absence of iron and exercise is why milk-fed veal is so pale. The calves need to be restrained or they'll try and drink their own urine to get nutrients.
Britain is trying 'pink veal' as an experiment...as long as you have a dairy herd, you'll have bull calves you don't need. Rather than pen them up, they're allowed to graze freely. The meat looks different, but tastes just as good if cooked right. It's better than shipping them off to mainland Europe for cruelty before slaughter.
As for foie gras, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.
NotAmerican at 12:43PM on 04/24/09
NotAmerican, when I think of milk-fed veal, I am thinking of the British model (I think one brand is called "rose veal". I saw a segment on it on BBC America - I really hope it takes hold here in the States).
At least you and I agree on something! Agreeing to disagree.
I think it's great for us all to have a discussion on this topic. It's groups like Farm Sanctuary who tell me what I can and can't eat and who target small businesses that get my dander up.
maryr123 at 4:31PM on 04/24/09
I agree about being forced to do anything. We have Compassion in World Farming over here, which I think does a great job in educating and encouraging without going all PETA on anyone...they wholly endorse the 'Pink Veal', for instance. Their stance is, in their perfect world, everyone would go vegetarian, but that's not going to happen tomorrow. In the meantime, they encourage and support ethically raised meat.
I'm lucky enough to have a farm shop a few miles down the road which raises and butchers its own animals. You can see the pigs and cattle grazing on a few acres of grass, with fresh straw, fresh water, and even some toys to keep the pigs happy. They even have a special pen for piglets so they can stay with their mum, with a bowl of cut up fruit and veg for the public to feed them with. We don't eat much meat around our house, but if we do, it almost always comes from there. My kids are allowed with some exceptions to eat what they want (I'm not nuts about cheap meat or fast food in general) but they both know what a proper sausage tastes like, or how bacon should be, and it's really amazing how much better well-raised animals taste. A hand-made Gloucester Old-Spot sausage or gammon steak from an animal raised on grass and proper food rather than a genetic mutant raised on silage and indifference...there's no comparison. Does it cost more? Yes. Is it worth it, even if it means having it less? Definitely yes.
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's 'Meat' book nicely sets out ways to enjoy meat...virtually all types of meat...while still caring for the animal that provided it, and not wasting anything. I highly recommend it, if anyone hasn't read it.
NotAmerican at 11:01PM on 04/24/09