Fatty liver disease is what doctors call a "silent killer," like sipping on a yearslong arsenic cocktail.
asserted
doctors → call → cocktail
The way you get there, unfortunately, can be fun.
asserted
you → get → ?
There are a few animals that court this ailment.
asserted
that → be → ailment
Instead of threatening their survival, it is key to it.
asserted
it → threaten → it
Ducks and geese gorge themselves in the wild, biologically programmed to fill up their livers like fuel tanks before migration.
asserted
Ducks → gorge → migration
This avian overindulgence paved the way for a human indulgence: foie gras, the ancient, velvety dish made from the fattened livers of ducks and geese.
asserted
overindulgence → pave → ducks
Voters will soon determine whether restaurants in Washington, D.C., can legally continue to sell it.
asserted
restaurants → determine → it
A proposed ban, Initiative 86, is on Tuesday's ballot menu.
asserted
ban → propose → menu
The fight primarily centers on the notion that extracting those enlarged livers involves a uniquely vicious process.
asserted
extracting → center → process
"Ducks and geese are still being force-fed until their livers become diseased, all for an expensive dish served at fancy restaurants," Pro-Animal DC, an advocacy group helping push the initiative in the District, notes on its website.
asserted
DC → feed → website
"It's time to end this inhumane practice."
asserted
It → end → practice
Even many opponents of such bans seem to have accepted this cost-benefit analysis—they just come to a different conclusion.
asserted
they → seem → conclusion
Yet the premise beneath it ultimately crumbles in a way that foie gras could never.
uncertain
premise → crumble → way
"I've been on foie gras farms before in which the ducks see the tube and run towards it because they're excited," Bart Hutchins, chef and part-owner of the D.C. restaurant Butterworth's, told me.
asserted
Hutchins → see → me
I had come to Butterworth's for what felt like a foie gras final stand, a silky middle finger to the activists who are working to outlaw the very sort of tasting menu I paid to sample that evening.
asserted
I → come → menu
There was foie gras soup made famous by Jean-Louis Palladin, the French chef who smuggled livers into the U.S. for his Watergate restaurant after arriving in 1979, when it was illegal to import fresh poultry products from Europe.
asserted
it → be → Europe
And there was, as a closing act, a foie gras twinkie, which sounds like an unfortunate shotgun wedding between Hostess and haute cuisine, yet was somehow the best dish of the evening (a high bar).
asserted
which → be → evening
It was prepared in the kitchen but cooked up in a lab, practically engineered to draw the ire of the pâté patrol.
asserted
It → prepare → patrol
How D.C. would pay for this enforcement, if it evolves officially from private activism to a legitimate government job, has not been ironed out.
asserted
it → pay → job
The city's chief financial officer estimated the legislation would cost $314,000 over the next four fiscal years, though that does not factor in potential litigation challenging the measure.
asserted
that → estimate → measure
Which raises a question: What pot of money should D.C. drain funds from in order to ensure it can police foie gras?
asserted
it → raise → gras
Still, some see this as a worthy investment.
asserted
some → see → investment
"DC residents have shown we're ready for a cruelty-free DC and that compassion isn't separate from the fights over housing, health-care, and statehood," said Oye Owolewa, the shadow representative for D.C. in the U.S. House and the Democratic nominee for at-large councilmember on the D.C. Council, in a statement.
asserted
Owolewa → show → statement
(It's worth noting that well over $350,000 of funding for the campaign came in from out of state, so much so that Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has intimated she will vote against the measure on principle.)
asserted
she → note → principle
Foie gras had been disappearing steadily from the District before voters got the chance to consider Initiative 86.
asserted
voters → disappear → Initiative
At a recent meal at Le Diplomate—the Stephen Starr restaurant that is arguably D.C.'s most iconic French brasserie—I saw it was already gone from the menu.
asserted
it → see → menu
A longtime server told me it simply was not worth it anymore.
asserted
it → tell → me
General manager Charlie Smedile did not respond to a request for comment confirming when the restaurant yanked it, but it was relatively recently—I ordered it there in 2025, and an article in The 51st from November of the same year drops a line about Le Diplomate's foie gras parfait.
Hutchins is unaware of this change.
asserted
Hutchins → respond → change
When I tell him, he is visibly irritated.
asserted
he → tell → him
But something strange happened when Hutchins read Anthony Bourdain's 2010 book.
asserted
Hutchins → happen → book
In it, the author outlines his "heroes" and "villains."
asserted
author → outline → heroes
Puck, Hutchins says, would be considered "a hero of all of ours," a lock for the canon.
asserted
Hutchins → say → canon
Bourdain instead places him among the villains for his 2007 decision to ban foie gras across all of his restaurants, something Hutchins says had natural downstream effects on less powerful chefs with fewer resources to counter activists.
asserted
Hutchins → place → activists
Hutchins sees a theme.
asserted
Hutchins → see → theme
"I get death threats and stuff.
asserted
I → get → threats
I get all kinds of shit.
asserted
I → get → shit
I get letters to the restaurant, I get letters to my house, I get people following me to my car," he says.
asserted
he → get → car
"Stephen Starr, he runs around in Armani suits and really nice cars and has infinite money.
asserted
he → run → money
And so for him to cower on that is honestly disgusting, and I hope he's embarrassed of himself, and I hope it's kind of hard to sleep at night."
asserted
it → cower → night
Some specimens are bred to reach a market weight of 6.6 pounds in around 48 days; about 100 years ago, it took 112 days to reach just 2.5 pounds.
asserted
it → breed → pounds
…and 26 more, not listed.
The Aporia
