When Didier Durand led a campaign to overturn a ban on foie gras in Chicago, blood was spattered onto his restaurant windows, his patio was vandalised and he received threats.

While American animal-rights activists denounced him as a symbol of French cruelty, however, he won admiration in his native Dordogne for his steadfast defence of the local speciality.

Now Mr Durand is about to become a cult figure in the countryside of southwestern France after announcing plans to open a new front in the battle over Gallic gastronomy with what he calls a foie gras museum at his bistrot in Illinois.

He said: “I'm expecting more protests. I think I'll have to install surveillance cameras this time.” Mr Durand, 48, who grew up on a farm near Bergerac watching his mother produce the fatty duck livers seen by the French as one of the world's great delicacies, says he is on a mission to educate Americans about la cuisine Française.

“Foie gras has been produced for 5,000 years. It was the Egyptians who started it and there is nothing bad about it whatsoever,” he told The Times. Mr Durand insists the force-feeding of ducks and geese to fatten their livers, a practice described as abhorrent by opponents, is inoffensive.

“Ducks are built to be force-fed the same way that horses are built to be ridden,” he said. To prove his point, he will trace the history of foie gras with pictures and documents on the wall of a room in his restaurant, Cyrano's Bistrot.

Among the exhibits will be photographs of elderly French peasant women stuffing corn down the throats of ducks and geese, and a collection of labels from Gallic producers.

“I'd like to be able to move the museum into a separate building at some point, but for now it's going to have to be in the restaurant,” he said.

His hope is that diners will be inspired to try some of his dishes, such as sauteed foie gras accompanied by crushed potatoes with fines herbes, brioche and peaches and shiitakes with rhubarb glaze; or poached foie gras au torchon with Guerande salt and figs.

In the Dordogne, there could be no more noble cause. Although the French export only about 20 tonnes of foie gras a year to the United States out of a total production of 21,000 tonnes, criticism of the delicacy is seen as an affront to the national identity. Mr Durand, who moved to the US in 1986 and opened his bistrot a decade later, is being hailed as a saviour. “It will take more than a bit of haemoglobin on the front of his restaurant to stop this convinced gastronome,” said Sud Ouest, the local daily.

In Chicago, however, his initiative could re-ignite controversy. “It's inappropriate that this horribly abusive industry which rams pipes down animals' throats should have a museum,” a spokesman for Peta, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, said. “This will soon be consigned to the dustbin of history along with other human atrocities.”

When the city outlawed the sale of foie gras in 2006 in the name of animal welfare, Mr Durand campaigned against the ban and continued to serve foie gras in defiance of the law. “I got round the law by charging people for the salad and telling them the foie gras was free,” he said. “It is a question of freedom of choice.”

As a result, his restaurant was vandalised and he received letters threatening to “stuff him” in the same way that ducks and geese are stuffed with food.

Mr Durand was triumphant when the ban was lifted last summer, and suggested that June 11, when the food re-appeared on Chicago menus, should become national foie gras day in the United States. “More people are ordering it now than ever before,” he said. “The more they want to ban it, the more people want to eat it.”

Now he is turning his attention to California, where Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state's Governor, plans to prohibit foie gras in 2012. “They want us to eat grass,” Mr Durand said. “But we will not give up. The fight continues.”

Museums for gourmets

● The Chocolate Museum in Cologne has live cocoa trees, a miniature chocolate factory and an exhibition tracing the 3,000-year history of cocoa and chocolate

● The Saffron Museum in Boynes, France, has displays of tools for growing, harvesting and processing saffron plants and explains the process, from planting to drying and grinding the saffron stamens

● The Bread Museum in Ulm, Germany, is devoted to the history of bread and bread making. Exhibitions explore the cultivation of cereal, milling, and the sale of bread

● The Mount Horeb Mustard Museum in Wisconsin features more than 5,000 jars, bottles and tubes of mustard, as well as historically significant mustard pots and advertisements

● The Shinyokohama Ramen Museum, Japan, charts the history of ramen noodles (pictured). Visitors can choose from nine different ramen restaurants on site

Sources: www.journeymart.com; www.japan-guide.com

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