The Greatest Gustatory Pleasure Of All Possibly Fleeting?

Maybe the giant sign extolling foie gras as one of life’s “greatest gustatory pleasures” was slightly over the top:

When Fairway Market hung a large sign at its Upper West Side store that said foie gras is humane and one of life’s “greatest gustatory pleasures,” a number of activists from the NYC No Foie Gras campaign petitioned the store to take it down.

Management removed the sign from the popular West Side market in a few days, but members of an animal rights group backing the campaign, Farm Sanctuary, plan to hand out leaflets in front of the store until the grocer pulls the French delicacy from its shelves.

“A lot of people were shocked to see it,” the president of Farm Sanctuary, Gene Baur, said. “I think the management of Fairway understood the issue and took it down.”

The production of foie gras, made from duck liver, is considered inhumane by activist groups because the birds are force-fed.

Farm Sanctuary was a major influence on the foie gras bans in California and Chicago. With its sights set on a New York ban, the group recently opened an office in the city and hired a full-time development coordinator.

Still, Fairway stands on its prinicples:

While Fairway hangs colorful signs throughout its stores to draw attention to products, the signs generally are not provocative, a spokesman for the market, Bruce Bobben, said.

“One of the partners has some discretion and put the sign up,” Mr. Bobben said. “It was an anomaly and totally unauthorized.”