Duckeasy (foie gras “speakeasy”)

Foie gras is made out of the fattened liver of a duck or goose. Some American municipalities sought to ban the product because of alleged ill treatment—such as forced feeding—of the animals. A “duckeasy” is an establishment that sells banned foie gras, similar to a speakeasy that sold banned liquor.
 
“Duckeasy” has been cited in print since at least 2006, when it was used during Chicago’s foie gras ban. “Duckeasy” was repopularized in 2012 during California’s foie gras ban. The California law banning foie gras had been described by some as “foie-mageddon.”
 
 
26 December 2006, Chicago (IL) Sun-Times, “What ban? Chefs to openly dish up foie gras: They say treat key part of New Year’s Eve meals” by Janet Rausa Fuller, pg. 3:
“All the chefs serving foie gras are ‘duckeasies,’” Durand joked.
 
Canada Free Press
Chicago ‘Duckeasies’ Flout Foie Gras Ban
By ConsumerFreedom.com
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Here’s a great consumer freedom story to ring in the New Year: Several of Chicago’s restaurateurs are standing up to the City Council’s absurd animal-rights-motivated edict demanding that they cease serving the French delicacy foie gras.
 
BBC News
Page last updated at 16:37 GMT, Thursday, 15 May 2008 17:37 UK
Chicago overturns foie gras ban
The city council of Chicago has overturned a ban on foie gras, less than two years after it was imposed.
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But Didier Durand, one of the Chicago chefs who formed a movement to end the ban, called the decision “fabulous”.
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Mr Durand acknowledged that his restaurant had been a “duckeasy”, getting round the ban by serving foie gras for free.
 
“Duckeasy” is a play on Chicago’s “speakeasies”, illegal bars that operated when the sale of alcohol was banned during the American prohibition.
 
Bloomberg.com
Foie Gras Goes Underground at California ‘Duckeasies’
By Alison Vekshin & James Nash - Jul 16, 2012 11:01 PM CT
On July 15, about a dozen people walked into a cozy San Francisco restaurant with a window sign reading “private event” to savor foie gras, California’s newest forbidden fruit.
 
They paid $100 apiece for “a 10-course tasting of quasi- legal goodness,” according to the online notice for the “Duckeasy” event. Each received an e-mail with the address only hours before the first sandwich of Wonder bread, grape jelly and foie gras mousse was served.
   
Tasty Morsels
WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2012
The Birth of the “Duckeasy”
San Francisco is no stranger to getting around regulation.
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Last Sunday I was able to attend one of these so-called “Duckeasies,” thrown by a couple friends at a disclosed-last-minute location downtown. The amuse bouche, foie gras mousse and Welch’s grape jam on Wonderbread, was delightfully playful and set the tone perfectly for the dinner: playful and whimsical, toying with the concept of foie as haute cuisine and using it in atypically rustic presentations and nestled among comfort foods.
   
Urban Dictionary
Duckeasy
A restaurant that surreptitiously serves foie gras (fattened duck liver) in jurisdictions that outlaw the practice. The name is a play on the prohibition era phenomenon of the speakeasy, which illegally served alcohol.
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by AYYFRON Jul 20, 2012