The Foie Gras Wars: How a 5,000-Year-Old Delicacy Inspired the World's Fiercest Food Fight

ublished by Simon & Schuster, 2009, hardcover, index, 352 pages, condition: as new.

The book traces the history of the popular bird-liver delicacy from its origins five thousand years ago through its reemergence as a luxury food, in an account that explores modern controversies pertaining to its production and the ways foie gras has become an object of cultural battles.

It is nearly impossible to make a sweet-and-sour sauce which is neither too sweet nor too sour. Striking the perfect balance is the mark of a truly expert chef. It is nearly impossible to write a book describing the collision of people for and against the production and service of foie gras which favours neither side in the controversy. Striking the perfect balance is the mark of a truly expert writer. Mark Caro, a journalist reporting for the Chicago Tribune, did it. In his book "The Foie Gras Wars," Caro dispassionately sets forth the positions of wild-eyed animal-rights terrorists whose methods are akin to those of organized crime and the Taliban, callous food giants who reduce an animal's existence to a boxed life calculated only to produce the most product for the least money, sincere and reasonable animal-rights advocates, and those who grow and serve foie gras in a sensible and responsible way. The reader is not only led to an understanding of the controversy -- shall ducks and geese be force-fed for the last few weeks of their lives to produce enlarged livers which taste very good -- but to an understanding of the politics of food, which is of more general application. Only a few readers are inclined to pick up a book on the ethics of eating; this would be an exceptionally good choice were one to choose only one such book.