Have you ever read some impeccable piece of trollery — a Thought Catalog article designed to spark outrage, say, or some new 4chan-perpetuated horrorshow — and thought “man, I wish I could put that on a bun and eat it for lunch”? Probably not, but now you can, because Quebec restaurant Côté-Est has come out with the ultimate trollburger: seal meat topped with foie gras.
The “Phoque Bardot” (and yes, that is a deliberate dig at seal hunt and foie gras opponent Brigitte Bardot, although it’s also a French pun because “phoque” means seal) costs $18, and it’s been on the menu at Côté-Est for a year. Recently, though, a post about the burger went viral on Facebook, with the expected results:
The outrage has spread, and Côté-Est has been hearing it. Owner of the restaurant, Kim Côté, says they have received comments and private message on their Facebook page, which they subsequently removed from Facebook. Côté says they have even received death threats.
According to Côté, all the seal meat used at the restaurant is federally inspected and legal, which means that at least it doesn’t come from baby seals. Or, well, at least it comes from baby seals who are older than a few weeks, which is when it becomes legal to kill them. (As far as I know it is always legal to force-feed geese until their livers become hepatic and suitable for foie gras, but to be fair, geese are real jerks.)
Naturally there are no plans to remove the burger from the menu, as that would defeat the entire purpose of making animal activists as pissed-off as possible.
