Ban Lifted, Foie Gras Is Back on the Menu in Chicago
previous related articleCHICAGO — Foie gras, run out of town with great fanfare two years ago, is being allowed back.
Beyond the foie gras itself, a peek into city politics, as the ban was reversed on Wednesday without debate.
On Wednesday, Chicago’s aldermen voted, 37 to 6, to repeal their ban on sales of the controversial delicacy, the fattened livers of ducks and geese. Since 2006, when this became the first major city in the United States to enact such a ban, it had been mocked by critics, including Mayor Richard M. Daley, who wondered whether aldermen should really be devoting precious time to telling Chicagoans what to eat.
The banning — and subsequent un-banning — of foie gras here seemed to say more about classic Chicago politics than it did about dinner.
One alderman, Joe Moore, who has long fought to outlaw the sales, arguing that foie gras is a product of animal cruelty, angrily denounced what he said was the sudden use during Wednesday’s council meeting of an obscure political rule to dump the ban without debate. Mr. Moore said he tried, pleaded, yelled to be allowed to speak, but Mr. Daley did not call on him.
“This is a sad day for good government in Chicago,” Mr. Moore said later, adding that he believed many of his colleagues had simply been embarrassed by the crush of national attention. “There was a feeling among many that they just didn’t want to deal with this anymore.”
But another alderman, Tom Tunney, a restaurant owner who pressed for the repeal, accused supporters of the ban of some equally fancy political maneuvering. When the aldermen voted 48 to 1 to outlaw foie gras in April 2006, it was part of a larger package of items, Mr. Tunney said, and some aldermen (including, he said, himself) did not even realize that they were approving the ban until it was too late.
In the end, some restaurateurs here agree, Chicago may have spent more time talking about foie gras than many of its residents ever did eating it.
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