Quoted: Anthony Bourdain sticks up for Canadian seal hunting after Mario Batali boycotts our seafood
Should these chefs boycott all Japanese products over whaling? Chinese over finning? Where do these tactics end? Canada [is] an easy, PC target.
—Anthony Bourdain took to Twitter yesterday to speak out against chefs Mario Batali, Michael Symon and hundreds more who’ve joined Chefs for Seals, a culinary crusade against Canada’s commercial seal hunt. The campaign gained steam last week when 42 current and former recipients of Food & Wine magazine’s Best New Chef title publicly pledged to boycott Canadian seafood until the controversial practice is stopped. Bourdain, who once dined on seal meat for his series No Reservations, calls the campaign’s slew of high-profile signatories “good-hearted” but “wrong.” Among his counter-arguments: the thriving Canadian seal population; the thousands of Inuits who depend on the practice for their day-to-day survival; and the sheer hypocrisy of the chef-driven movement (here’s one of Batali’s foie gras recipes). As for environmental concerns, Bourdain’s response is equally dismissive: “The combined carbon footprint of the 40 odd chef signatories is equal to a small African nation.” Zing.
Anthony Bourdain is so gangst
Anthony Bourdain is woefully misinformed. He sounds like he’s been spoon-fed “facts” by the Canadian government and sealing industry. The commercial seal hunt – a large industrialized slaughter of baby seals primarily for their fur – and the Inuit subsistance hunt are two separate things entirely. Too bad Bourdain is embarrassing himself in this way. Hopefully he’ll be interested in learning the true facts about the commercial seal slaughter.
As an Atlantic Canadian I support and encourage an international boycott of Canadian seafood products until the commercial seal slaughter is ended,
Anthony is not misinformed, he is bang on. Why don’t you Bridget devote some time to the Easter Slaughter of Lambs in appalling fashion in the name of Easter in Italy over 4 million of them. Does Mario Batali boycott Italy no he promotes all things Italian. Perhaps you will also boycott all Japanese products in honour of their wailing practices or get rid of every Chinese product in your home because of there treatment of humans in China. The human rights violations and murder compared to a few seals is far worse. What is wrong with you do, a little homework and I am ashamed you are an Atlantic Canadian Hypocrite and an embarrasment to this Country.
Maybe these great American chefs should worry more about the food system freakshow they have helped perpetuate over the years in there blessed country! Anthony Bourdain is the man!