This is not a good time to be a duck with a fatty liver in California, although better times lie just ahead. Chefs are loading their high-end menus with duck liver: terrine de foie gras, seared foie gras with mango chutney, foie gras salad and sweet foie gras for dessert. And they are keeping secret the locations of their multicourse dinners to avoid protesters as a July 1 ban looms in California, the only state to outlaw foie gras.
Demand for the delicacy created by force-feeding ducks has never been higher as diners sate their palates with a product that soon will be banned for production and sale in the Golden State.
The California ban maintains that overfeeding ducks using a pipe stuffed down the esophagus is cruel. Foie gras — French for “fatty liver” — is made from liver swollen to 10 times its normal size. Ducks’ livers become so engorged by the feeding process, called “gavage,” that the birds can’t walk and have trouble breathing.
Gavage has been outlawed in a dozen countries, including Israel, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
