Over at Eat All About It, Rebekah Denn reports that barring additional problems with construction or the King County health department, the Swinery will finally open in West Seattle tomorrow, featuring not just bacon but house-made sausages and other cured meats, deli sandwiches, and (praise heaven!) Hudson Valley foie gras.

In a throw-down to foie gras opponents (who argue, basically, that gauvage—the force-feeding technique used produce the enlarged liver from which foie gras is made—is cruel) Swinery owner Gabriel Claycamp wrote on the Swinery's web site (sic throughout):

FOIE GRAS: We carry it. It isn't local, it is from Hudson Valley, NY. Why? Because we love it and believe in it. And we are giving the finger to those who don't. By focusing hate on foie gras producers and chefs who serve it, protestors have effectively given permission for the cruelty that takes place in the rest of the meat industry. Our products are cruelty free... and we say this with a strait face. Hudson Valley is humane and sane way to raise ducks. We have been there, and seen it with our own eyes. When someone opens a local foie gras farm, we will switch, but we will always carry foie gras. Protestors are welcome to come any time, but we recommend Fridays... nothing sells the foie like some idiot with a bullhorn spouting things they have read on the internet. Anytime there are protestors, we start sampling free foie and sauternes...bring it.

It never ceases to amaze me the way some animal-rights protesters fixate on foie gras—an expensive luxury item consumed by a tiny sliver of the United States' population—while all but ignoring an industrial food system that treats many more animals far less humanely, causes vastly greater harm to the environment, and demonstrably harms far more people than the tiny, mostly family-run, foie gras industry.
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