U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson overturned California’s state ban on foie gras (duck and goose liver). The ban took effect in 2012 after animal-rights groups exposed how foie gras is produced (via force-feeding birds with a tube). Wilson wrote: “California cannot regulate foie gras products’ ingredients by creatively phrasing its law in terms of the manner in which those ingredients were produced.”
Judge Wilson, a native of New York City and graduate of Lehigh University and Brooklyn Law School, quipped that the defendant, Chef Harris “seeks to have her pâté and eat it, too.” California restaurants may start serving foie gras on Thursday.
