Lion Chops Provoke Outrage as Wichita Chef Rethinks Menu Businessweek

When American chefs start serving
lion even the animal-rights activists give foie gras a reprieve.
If only momentarily.
Taste & See, a Latin-fusion restaurant in Wichita, Kansas,
expected to serve the king of beasts tonight as part of an
exotic-game tasting.
Responding to protests from animal-rights groups, chef
Jason Febres removed the big cat from the menu — he 86ed it, in
restaurant lingo.
“We wish to note that the small percentage of people who
genuinely and intelligently pleaded their case was what
persuaded us to reconsider,” Taste & See said in a release.
As of Tuesday morning, a petition on Change.org to cancel
the dinner listed nearly 11,000 electronic signatures.
Kangaroo is on the bill of fare, along with Scottish hare,
crocodile, alpaca, water buffalo, antelope and foie gras. The
Change.org petition is still calling for the meal’s cancellation
because of the presence of those “exotic animals.”
Here’s the thing: It’s legal to eat African lion in the
U.S.
Liver Nixed
It’s the sale of foie gras that’s illegal, at least in the
state of California.
The law has a few loopholes that some chefs like to
exploit.
Restaurant Thir13en in Sacramento has served “
brioche” with a “complimentary” side of duck liver as part of
a semantic effort to subvert the ban, as the New York Times
reported earlier this week.
Activists were the force behind California’s foie ban,
which went into effect in July. But there aren’t any petitions
against Thir13en on Change.org just yet.
One prominent Texas chef defended Taste & See’s initial
plans to serve big cat.
“As long as it’s responsibly sourced, I have no problem
with what Chef Febres wants to serve,” said Tim Love of the
game-centric Lonesome Dove Western Bistro in Fort Worth. Love,
in an e-mail, said he tried lion years ago.
“I liked it. It was pretty thrilling,” he said.
No lion on Love’s menu just yet. But there are elk sliders,
among other southwestern delicacies.
“My job is to create a memorable experience for my guests,
and if it’s serving kangaroo nachos or rabbit rattlesnake
sausage, so be it.”
Memorably Unmemorable
Chef Brad Farmerie, of the Michelin-starred Public in New
York, wasn’t too happy with his big-cat experience.
“It was memorably unmemorable, fairly neutral, like the
other-other white meat,” he said of lion, adding that he
probably wouldn’t serve it.
Farmerie, like Love, does cook kangaroo.
“We have fielded calls from ‘reactionists’ who were angry
that we were serving these cute, cuddly creatures, and then got
‘raided’ by some government agents a few years back because
kangaroo was accidentally included in a New York list of
endangered animals.”
Taste & See declined to name the source or supplier of the
lion meat.
“Due to the extreme response and threatening nature of
some, I do not wish to subject anyone else to the barrage of
anger that we have endured,” a spokesperson for the restaurant
wrote in an e-mail.
Exotic Meats, an online purveyor, currently lists its lion
meat supplies as “out of stock.”
The website for Czimer’s Game & Seafood, an Illinois-based
butcher, advertises African lion legs, loins, steaks, ribs and
burgers, ranging in price from .95 to .95 a pound.
For now, however, it’s lions 1, ducks zero.
Muse highlights include Mark Beech on pop music and Philip
Boroff on tennis.
To contact the writer of this column:
Ryan Sutton in New York at rsutton1@bloomberg.net or
qualityrye on http://twitter.com/qualityrye
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Manuela Hoelterhoff at
mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.
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