Leda chef

4/5/05 New York Times, Lawrence Downes

"The list of things we do to animals before we eat them is constrained only by the limits of human hunger..."
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Charlie Trotter, chef of the restaurant that carries his name has been serving upscale cuisine to a continual chorus of praise and delight for years, but if he has been preaching to the choir then it seems the morality of the pulpit has finally come home to roost.

Chef Trotter, author of "Charlie Trotter's Meat and Game," it appears, has forsworn the practice and cuisine art of foie gras, a change of heart supposedly prompted by a recent trip to a duck farm/foie gras manufacturer.

California's Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger banned the force feeding of ducks and geese to produce the fatted liver last year. The law takes affect in 2012. Apparently Chef Trotter can be a bit more autocratic in his own digs, the ban is in effect now.

Other chefs of the realm have been serving their own dish of distate by dissing Trotter, but his stand is courageous and timely none the less and we think he has the right to his moral and ethical standards. Those who imply otherwise might one day eat some crow.