Quackers in California

Closing out the week on food and drink, all the news here in California is about the End of Life as We Know It.

That is, if you’re a gourmand with a jones for foie gras. Back in 2004 the Lege passed a law banning the production and sale of this particular type of goose or duck liver. That is, the extra-fatty sort that requires the animal be force-fed with a tube for some time before it’s slaughtered.

The ban goes into effect on Sunday.

As you might imagine, the foie gras lovers are not waddling gentle into that good night. In fact, there’s been quite a run on the delicacy in both restaurants and specialty shops. Also—this being California—a lot of protests.

One thing I find interesting is that although the foie fans have had a whole lot of time to prepare for—or try to overturn—the law, they only appear to have started marshaling their forces in the last couple of months. There was a spate of hoo-ha around here in May, with chefs holding fight-the-ban” (or, in one chef’s term, “FU Foie Gras Revolution”) foie gras fundraising banquets that were picketed by the PETA set. As though they suddenly woke up and realized they were going to have to start serving regular poultry livers. I don’t know what they’ve been doing for the past eight years.

I expect people to start smuggling the stuff across the state’s borders in luggage. Will they have paté sniffer-beagles in the airports? Well, no—that would be silly, since the ban is on producing or selling the product in-state, not possessing it or eating it.

So we may see the practice of “foie-kage”, or maybe BYOF—restaurant patrons toting a brown paper bag (uh, well, no—that would be a crime against recycling, as would plastic; maybe it’ll be wrapped in a banana leaf) of foie gras into their favorite eatery and; paying a fee for the chef to serve it.

Or perhaps the restaurants will have $75 bagels on the menu, with the option of a schmear of foie gras instead of the usual, pedestrian, chopped liver.

If this ban follows the pattern set by the 18^th Amendment to the US Constitution, we’ll probably see high-end restaurateurs turn into scoff-laws, offering bootlegged foie gras on verbal menus; you’ll have to give a password and a secret handshake to get the “special” meal.

They’ll call the establishments "quackeasies”.