Ahhhh! This morning we have the delectable Ms Winslet, arms held aloft in prayer to the almighty, roped to the bow of yet another creaking tub full of screaming hysterics convinced that the end of the world is nigh.

Yes, she is the figurehead for PETAs latest voyage into the treacherous waters surrounding ‘other people’s eating habits’.

It is not enough for the PETA hysterics to confine themselves to a diet of Brussel sprouts – they want everybody else to join them, force fed, no less.

Even looking as she does above, on a bed of fur, cruelly ripped from the body of some weasel somewhere (she was duped I tell you, she was duped, they told her it was fake fur, and the daft bint couldn’t tell the difference) (besides, the pictures were good for her career, and she is an artiste) but even looking as delectable as that was not sufficient to keep husband Sam Mendes in her bed after seven years of sharing the marital pit with the after effects of his wife’s exclusively Brussel sprout diet.

Now she has ‘lent her voice’ – not her body, you understand, after being duped once you cannot be too careful – to PETA’s anti-Foie Gras campaign.

I live in the centre of Foie Gras country – and in the centre of the French tobacco industry, too – we are multiple sinners round here. I know a thing or two about the sheer reverence with which those Geese are treated.

Kate is not alone in her vocal opposition to the trade; there is a miserable band of Peruvian jumpered, plastic sandaled, grey faced English women who hang around a nearby supermarket every Saturday morning, in a vain attempt to collect signatures for their petition to ban not just the rich and famous in far flung capital cities, but the entire world, the entire world, I tell you, including the entire population of the Dordogne, from eating Foie Gras.

They are convinced that the farmers round here keep a happy flock of Geese strutting round the plum trees in the sunshine, waddling their way, of their own volition, to the feeding sheds in the evening, as a front to conceal an evil trade which results in the ‘animals becoming sick and unable to move naturally’. I have yet to see a French farmer carrying his Geese to the feeding sheds.

She says ‘no one pays a higher price than the Ducks and Geese who are abused and killed to make it’.

One thing about the French is that they do not abuse and kill any animal for a small part of that animal. Not for them the sanitised packets of cellophane wrapped skinned chicken breast. They sell them here, but you won’t see any self respecting French woman buying them. They buy the entire animal and use every last part of it. They have a reverence bordering on religious obsession with the quality of their food.

The local butcher’s shop will routinely tell you who reared each and every piece of meat that he sells – he needs to know, for the housewife will ask. Did it graze on Pierre’s waterside meadows, or feed on John-Paul’s slightly rougher grass? The answer will dictate how she cooks it.

In October the conversations begin as to who has reared the finest Geese. Addresses will be swapped, journeys made to far flung farms, and the foie gras will return home to be soaked overnight in the finest Monbazillac, simmered for a brief few minutes, anxiously watched, and then placed in the prized family foie gras presse; sealed with goose fat, and placed in the larder for Christmas. It is as much a ritual as making the foul treacley Christmas pudding is for the English.

I cannot speak for the Brussel sprout farmers up north and Kate is right to be cautious at lending more than her voice to this campaign, for I doubt PETA have told her anything of the fate of the Brussel Sprout.

I have heard dark tales of the raising of Brussel sprouts. They live in the cold, hard, and waterlogged clay of Northern lands, deliberately left out in the harsh winter frosts merely to improve their flavour. They say you can see them trembling in the fields, nervously waiting for the day when they will be plucked, still alive, by noisy mechanical hands from their Mother’s arms.

Hurled into rough wooden crates, they may wait days to be collected by Lorries and transported hundreds of miles to factories where they are frozen solid and forced into plastic bags before being stored in sub-zero temperatures in a supermarket.

Come Christmas time, whilst the French are enjoying their Apero et amuses bouches on a still sunlit terrace, the English are shivering in their rarely used kitchens, thoughtlessly chucking those Brussel Sprouts into boiling water in order to fill their marital bed with noxious sulphur fumes. It is as much a ritual as eating good food is for the French.

I might have left it too late to be duped into posing naked on a fake fur spread, but I reckon I could still lend my voice to a campaign to save the Brussel sprout.

Mrs Rigby
April 18, 2010 at 09:10

You forgot to mention how cruel they are to rhubarb. They give the plants three years of freedom, then dig them up and replant them in darkened sheds so they grow really quickly. Then they pull off all their leaves as soon as they appear – and we eat the stalks and call it a delicacy.

Old Holborn
April 18, 2010 at 09:14

She’s a bit too hairy for me. Shave your armpits love. and your back.

Elvera
April 18, 2010 at 09:41

You are what you eat!

Sabot
April 18, 2010 at 09:58

Chance would be a fine thing, Elvera. On my pension I only eat Sell by Date stuff, so my diet is a bit hit and miss. And Foie Gras doesn’t come up all that often, especially if someone else gets to it before I do.

JuliaM
April 18, 2010 at 10:40

” they told her it was fake fur, and the daft bint couldn

Ed P
April 18, 2010 at 11:46

It’s good to hear the geese are free to wander, etc. Popular lore here in the UK says the geese are too fat to move, force-fed by funnel & tube, much suffering, etc. This perception is not new, but pre-dates PETA’s formation by decades. Is it really all wrong?
I like good French foodstuffs, but concerns about possibly cruel farming techniques are embedded deeply. So although delicious, eating Foie Gras always has an ethical attachment.

beaverlover
April 18, 2010 at 12:04

You can’t beat the taste of a nice hairy beaver. I always admired Kate Winslet so when I saw her hubby I thought ” heck I could have been in there ! ”
It’s similar to poor Kate Garraway who fell for scruffy Dolly Draper the psychologist and political smearist who studied in Berkeley. But not at Berkeley.

Gloria Smudd
April 18, 2010 at 13:58

Some people’s marital beds are filled with noxious fumes even if a sprout hasn’t been within 100 miles of the rarely-used kitchen. What with that and the snoring, Mr Smudd deserves a medal.

2Mac
April 18, 2010 at 19:25

I was recently forced to purchase Brussel Sprouts by Mrs 2Mac to grow along with Cabbage and other non enjoyable food stuffs that I will spend the next few months growing.

Why is it that all the shit tasting foods are good for you and all the best tasting foods are bad.

If God wanted me to eat Broccolli or some other green goodness then he would have made it taste like Bacon.

I have met many a sickly looking pale faced swivel eyed Vegy/Vega/Animal rights fuckwit telling me how good their diet is and how healthy they are.

If so how come they all look like they have just escaped from a harsh jail. Thin and Pale.

I do agree with better conditions for my food prior to being packed but that it about increasing the taste. Could not care if the chickens were happy or not.

Ian R Thorpe
April 18, 2010 at 19:57

I used to think Kate Winslet was a gorgeous, classy bit of totty until I saw Hideous Kinky. Well I say “saw it”, I lasted til just over half way (more than most, I’m a northerner) before running from the room screaming “What kind of raving nutter would agree to be in this pile of shite.”

One who supports PETA totalitariand vegetarianism obviously.

binlid
April 18, 2010 at 21:56

The secret of fart-free brussels sprouts (and cabbage) is to boil them for no more than 8 minutes. Unfortunately, mr bin likes me to put his on a low simmer just after breakfast for consuming at lunch. No wonder he spends a lot of time sleeping in the spare room.