Stasisesque said:
Foie gras is very tasty, but I think the majority object to it because of how it is produced, rather than the taste. Same with veal, which is also tasty.
I agree with generally
all Foie Gras produced in the countries of Eastern Europe being wrong by default. People like it, produce it themselves in the most troglodyte and careless ways possible... and industrial style production for export is even worse, all about 'efficiency', which translates to cheapest possible, worst possible scenarios for the animals. That's utter crap and deserves some severe spanking, or at least boycotting.
I don't think much of the outrage and bans in, say, California are really justifiable... I myself severely opposed this, until I learned more about how it's produced properly. There's no suffering there, and all the animals are healthy and edible, not toxic lumps of gangrenous, resistant strains carrying, infested cancerous mass like you'd get from, ahem, Hungary or any other country that does not quite feel to bow down to proper laws, which do not have to be excessively constraining, really.
Veal is superb meat I really like to work with, but the problem is that all over the world, veals are basically starved and stuffed with utmost crap food so their meat does not turn a healthy, natural red. That's plain animal abuse, but it's almost as hard to counter as the abysmal slaughter routines (/"rites") in, say, Muslim countries. There's a rather 'new' video showing a bunch of camels all standing crammed in a corner, clearly very afraid and unhappy, while some of their fellows are being cut up alive, dying, bleeding, complaining very loudly about the mistreatment. These things must stop, we've come a long way since the Stone Age, and I think we - as the unified human race that does, alas, refuse to exist as that - and all the animals we use as sustenance deserve better. It's just bad style and a severe lack of decency to make creatures suffer like that. And I don't even like PETA, y'know?
I also don't consider it to be acceptable to always go for the sirloin or ribeye and basically throw away the rest of the animal. Also, I find it highly offensive that some countries/industries/cultures specialize in the most expensive cuts, making for example whole chicken cheap, unwanted, throw-away food items they then freeze and ship off to African countries, not caring that some don't even have much in the way of refrigeration. It's just totally wrong. Just as wrong as mutilating millions of sharks only to get a funny little flubber in your soup that has magic abilities or confirms you belong to the master race on Earth. Same goes for people considering it to be cool to eat live octopi. Cancer to the lot of them, savage beasts.
Well, some of my favourite raw materials include beef hearts, ox tail, chicken hearts or lamb breast - cheap cuts that require some manual work and sharp knives to get into edible shape, but so chock full of flavours and sheer eating pleasure.
Also, black pudding, which is basically animal/pig blood. Some cultures go so far as to forbid eating it, I think that's utter crap. You don't throw away the good, healthy stuff. I don't care if our ancestors ritually slaughtered and burned animals, we've evolved a bit since then. At least I hope so.
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