Trib gooses Chicago's foie gras ban

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley doesn't always talk in complete sentences. A trait that endears him to City Hall reporters in the Windy City, by the way. But does have a way with words. Which also endears him to reporters.

First, the quote from Daley. The issue: Chicago City Council's ordinance banning foie gras, a type of goose liver paste, on humanitarian grounds. Here's how today's Chicago Tribune set up the quote, about midway into the story:

Call it the City Council's foie gras faux pas.

The ban began with the outrage of animal rights activists, who cited the cruelty of force-feeding ducks and geese with tubes until their livers swelled to 10 times normal size.

But Tuesday brought an opportunity to goose the ban's proponents.

"Why would they pick this and not anything else?" Daley asked. "How about veal? How about chicken? How about steak? Beef? How about fish?"

If a foie gras ban is OK, Daley said, "all of a sudden, you can question any type, basically, anything that can be served in a restaurant. The poor snails and the mussels and the shrimp. I could go on and on. The lobsters."

Daley's quote was "billboarded" on page 1 (which means it was set in 16 - or 18-point type as an eye-catcher). But the Trib went all-out on the story. Starting with the byline, which shows how many reporters went fanning out from the Tribune Tower to talk to diners:

By Josh Noel, Brendan McCarthy and James Janega, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporters Michael Higgins, Gerry Doyle and Mickey Ciokajlo contributed to this report
Published August 23, 2006

Foie gras appeared on pizza on Archer Avenue Tuesday, complemented cornbread and catfish at a South Side soul food place, and was stacked on sausages like pats of butter at a gourmet hot dog joint on the North Side.

Chicago's immediate reaction to a city ordinance banning foie gras--the French dish made from the livers of force-fed ducks and geese--was to embrace the gray goo like never before, in flights of culinary imagination.

Rhetoric and pate abounded on the first day of the City Council's ban, as restaurateurs and gourmands openly flouted the prohibition -- cultured, giddy, goose-liver-fueled acts of defiance.

On Tuesday morning the Illinois Restaurant Association filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court seeking to overturn the ban, accusing the City Council of overstepping its authority.

All in all, it's a cute story. And I think Daley's quote is one of the best from a public figure since former President George H.W. "Poppy" Bush banned broccoli from the White House and Air Force One: "I'm President of the United States, and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli!"