Abstract: Who cares about foie gras? As it turns out, many do. In the
last decade, this French delicacy—the fattened liver of ducks or geese
that have been force-fed through a tube—has been at the center of
contentious battles between animal rights activists, artisanal farmers,
industry groups, politicians, chefs, and foodies. This talk focuses on
the multivocal nature of foie gras’s American “gastropolitics,” defined
as cultural conflicts over foods or culinary practices located at the
intersection of social movement activism, cultural markets, and legal
regulation, and interrogates the complexities of what it means to
identify as a “moral” eater in today’s food world. In particular, I
argue that foie gras is not an inconsequential issue for the small size
of its industry or its lack of cultural resonance in American culinary
practices, as some might posit. Rather, I argue that it is symbolically
precarious – an exemplar of how combining moral politics and the culture
of markets makes our relationship with food complex.