Contested Tastes: Foie Gras and the Politics of Food by Michaela Desoucey (review)

Michaela Desoucey’s study offers a foray into the history and politics of a predominantly French delicacy that has become a lightning rod for controversy in the United States. Desoucey offers a factual cornucopia about the product and its controversies from a historical, social, and political perspective, while demonstrating how the subject of foie gras can produce a meaningful conversation about larger issues in gastropolitics. Desoucey delivers abundant information (for example, how forced feeding takes place, why ducks are mostly used instead of geese, and how their flavours differ) while addressing wider social implications, such as how cheaper-to-raise ducks ‘democratize’ foie gras, and so on. The central ethical question remains whether force-feeding the animals to fatten their livers is as cruel as the food’s detractors claim. Desoucey provides readers with tools to make their own decisions, including information about the birds’ physiology, and how a range of specialists come down on the topic. She addresses arguments both for and against foie gras, including how anthropomorphizing the animals distorts reality and whether the real controversy might be due to our modern disconnection from the unromantic realities of farming. On the flip side, she points to sources of cruelty, such as tendencies towards the industrialization of foie gras. Shifting the perspective towards people, Desoucey analyses how matters of cultural heritage, tradition, authenticity, and national identity shape the perception of foie gras by the public, even suggesting that it has become an emblematic culinary icon that the French use to perform and preserve Frenchness. Equally fascinating is what foie gras tells us about identity politics in America. After detailing the foie gras industry in the US, Desoucey walks readers through current and past controversies, providing an analysis of what motivates animal-rights advocates, foodies, and ordinary citizens to rally so passionately for or against the food. We learn how social identities are shaped and improbably staked on a relatively obscure delicacy. The book is strongest when Desoucey’s highly personalized narrative recounts her experiences with Michelin-starred chefs, farmers, and political figures, making the enquiry lived and real. The prose is mostly crisp and there is enough theoretical backbone (Pierre Bourdieu, Thorstein Veblen, Mary Douglas, Arjun Appadurai) to keep the book from feeling anecdotal. Yet, theories are applied sparingly where they can help the reader rather than driving the narrative or conclusions. Desoucey’s writing is also intellectually honest, which becomes important when we learn how other individuals have manipulated the truth. French quotations could have used more proofing, and certain translations threaten the analytical precision. Rendering ‘mon petit ami fait du foie gras’ as ‘my boyfriend does foie gras’ instead of ‘makes’, gives an unwarranted impression of rusticity. There are also several factual repetitions in the book detracting from the aforementioned impression of crispness. Finally, despite a relatively exhaustive treatment, Desoucey misses some important critical work (for instance, questions of speciesism, race, and gender in Hudson Valley Foie Gras, America’s biggest factory farm). That said, Desoucey has produced a highly successful study, and a stimulating read.