California Finally Enacts its Ban on Foie Gras

With an 8 year old Ban finally coming into effect on July 1^st 2012, California joins such great places as Israel, Turkey, Argentina and Italy to make the selling of Foie Gras illegal. Being that Foie Gras cannot legally be sold in any restaurant or store, businesses have gotten savvy and have began to treat it in a similar fashion to how Medical Marijuana is so widely distributed throughout California and are instead, giving it away in exchange for donations at finer more reputable establishments.

Sure serving Foie Gras is illegal in this state, but as far as enforcing the law, who is actually going to do so? Chefs around the World are weighing in heavy on the debate as to whether or not the concept of gorging a duck for the sole purpose of consuming their liver is ethical in this day and age. With those arguments come great points from both sides, but the fact remains the same, it is illegal to harvest a duck for the purposes of making Foie Gras and it is just as illegal to serve it your establishment.

Another problem that stems from not being able to serve such a product that people have come to enjoy so regularly for numerous different reasons is what will the businesses do who have hundreds of employees to take care of? In some cases those businesses are seeing a huge boom in the demand for their products, as the public at large are fearful it may become increasingly harder to find over the next few years. Those same businesses are smart and have moved outside of the States lines and should continue to do just fine, that is until the next State, says they no longer wish to permit such a business within their borders. 

Recipe Of The Day: National Peking Duck Day

Today let us rejoice in the great Holiday that National Peking Duck Day. Ok maybe that is a bit much. But Duck is incredible. People either seem to love it or hate it and if they haven’t had a perfectly seasoned and cooked Duck, they most likely will hate it. Then they usually start going off about other foods they hate and well the story goes downhill from there.

That is why we here The Supreme Plate, are glad that Peking Duck has its own day, that will hopefully entice people to give it a chance and put it on their plates and in their stomachs.

Something can be said for some crispy duck wrapped inside a warm fresh crepe. For those of you that haven’t had this incredible dish, you might need to be slapped upside the head. Ok we won’t go that far but it is truly some of the most amazing simplistic food you will ever have in your life.

That is to say you can pull off the crepe as it should be done. Don’t overcook the crepe and don’t undercook the Duck that’s just a bad evening waiting to happen at that point. You want to make sure that you have the perfect balance of the crispy skin, sliced Duck meat, scallion, cucumber and Hoisin sauce in your crepe.

Hoisin can be found in most major supermarkets on the Asian foods isle and for those that are leery of buying things they don’t know, Kikkoman makes a nice low sodium version that will work great for this recipe.