Incrementalism to Doughdoughism

By Rich Kozlovich

There are a lot of Ism's out there covering virtually everything and everyone.  This list goes on ad nauseum. But, let's deal with Incrementalism. It's not listed by the way, so I'm pretty confident I must have coined that term, so I'm claiming it as my own.  Feel free to use if you like though.

How many have tasted foie gras or even know what it is?  Its liver, but not just any old kind of liver; its goose or duck liver.  But not any old kind of goose or duck liver. It seems that when you force feed a migratory goose or duck species (This doesn’t work on non-migratory species.  Who knew?) that it gets a large liver, a really large liver, which supposedly tastes really great.  Supposedly goose foie gras is better than duck. 

Foie gras, (pronounced fwa gra) is French for “fat liver”. This is achieved through a process of force feeding that goes back to ancient Egypt. “Foie gras is described as rich, buttery, and delicate, unlike that of a regular duck or goose liver.”

Now clearly this isn’t the kind of liver that my parents and grandparents generation doted on. That generation would go to a restaurant with a huge menu and go into rapture because liver and onions is the special the day! Of course that is usually beef liver, but they even like chicken livers as the special of the day.

I am almost 76 and you don't see a lot of people from my generation getting all that excited about liver, smothered in onions or any other way for that matter.   There must be a reason why anyone would like liver, and I think I know what it is.  My parents and grandparents generation actually liked liver, and they really liked liver smothered in onions.  I think the only reason they liked it was because it was one of the few meats they could afford during the Great Depression years. Liver, gizzards, chicken wings and pork ribs weren't popular, as a result, they were mighty cheap back in those days, sometimes free.  Amazing how things have changed.   In those days they used to make chicken soup with chicken feet as the base for stock. That is one ugly sight!

In years gone by, average people didn’t have meat three meals a day. During the depths of the Great Depression many didn’t have meat once a week.  Beans and pasta were daily staples that kept those families alive.  

Those old enough to remember the Little Rascals will remember an episode when Alfalfa was all excited because he was going to have meat at dinner that night. Meat was a big deal then, and if liver smothered in onions (the only way it could possibly be eaten) is all you can afford, and you have it enough in your youth, you might have the tendency to think the stuff is pretty great. Personally, I have always thought that anything tasting that bad must be toxic, kind of like kale, another bad tasting item some are euphoric over.

Enough about that,  back to foie gras! This is the liver over which gourmets are rapturous. As it turns out the animal rights activists are enthusiastic over it also. The difference is they wanted to ban it because they claimed the raising process is cruel. There is an awful lot of hot air, loaded with CO2, being emitted by these people over this issue.  Hmmm, I just had a thought.  Does that make them polluters and promotes of global warming?  After all, if cow flatulence is part of the problem, then why not hot air?  Right? 

People who were born, raised and living in cities buy their food at the market and have never lived or worked on a farm, as a result they're amazingly ignorant about what it takes to produce food.  Why then should they have anything to say about this or anything else farmers do?  None of these things ever became an issue until there were so many ignorant people living in the cities and so few living on farms, who actually know how to produce food they consume. 

Now, if they find eating foie gras offensive, then they shouldn't eat it, but like all the good little lefties, that's never enough.  They not only won't eat it, they demand you shouldn't eat it either.   And to make sure you don't eat it, they want laws passed to make it against the law to serve it.  That way their sensibilities won't be offended and they can feel all good about themselves.  Maybe its time the rest of us decided our sensibilities are more important, especially since their sensibilities seem to get offended over a lot.  In fact, these tormented souls seem to get offended by just about everything, and fall for just about anything, so take your pick. 

One hundred years ago over fifty percent on the population was involved in agriculture of some sort. Two hundred years ago most of the population farmed or at least raised some of their own food because the population in the cities was relatively small. Industrialization changed all of that, especially after WWII, and that changed attitudes. 

It was a process of Incrementalism. One step at a time.  The reality is they are against eating any part of any animal.  Foie gras is just one step in the process. Today foie gras, tomorrow the goose, the next day ducks and then chickens and so on until the eating of all animal flesh is banned. At least that's their goal, but make no mistake about it, if they hadn’t chosen animal rights for their Ism, it would be something else, like deciding plants have rights. 

Take the Swiss for example. The Swiss have really gone over the edge. They added an amendment to a law that requires the Swiss to recognize the dignity of all living things to include…..plants. Yes, even the “decapitation” of wildflowers at the roadside “without rational reason”, will be punished. Folks, we have to stop being so anthropomorphic. Placing human values on non human things is irrational.

What if someone starts a movement that claims plants feel pain during harvest and therefore we shouldn’t harvest grains, which means we have to stop eating bread? Since there's no Ism I can find that defines this, I've decided to create another Ism.  Let's call it Doughdoughism!  Now, I know that's not listed, and I know I created that Ism, but if you like it, you can feel free to use it also.