Wolfgang Puck and Foie Gras

First, anyone who has read this space for any period of time knows that I utterly detest that charlatan Wolfgang Puck. There is nothing Californian, nothing "gourmet", nothing genuine about any aspect of his approach to food. Just about the only other person I can think of who has had a worse impact on food has been Jeremiah Towers.

So, it came as no surprise that Puck has jumped on the anti-foie gras bandwagon. My first response was, "gee, I didn't realize that he was using the stuff on his frozen pizzas or canned soups."

Then, I had one of those "ah-hah!" moments.

I have been wanting to make a point of using the word "faggot" at least once a week, just in solidarity with those who are facing blacklisting for using it. The problem is, I could never really think of who to use it on. As an epithet for homosexuals, it is pointless. After all, we must be careful to distinguish between the person who suffers from same-sex attraction disorder and someone who acts on it. And even the person who acts on it, we must remember their humanity and that they, too, were created in the image of Christ.

But there is a good use of "faggot," as I have mentioned before, and it has nothing to do with homosexualism, but rather goes back to the good old playground insult for someone who is not a Mensch. And when I think of a poster boy for this sort of faggot, Wolfgang Puck comes immediately to mind: the sort of person who publicly pats himself on the back for taking a moral position that is so far off his table anyway as to be irrelevant. Surely the Southern Californians who make up the bulk of his restaurant audience don't eat foie gras (or much of anything good: honestly, El Ay is a dining wasteland, especially considering its wealth and diverse population). He has never put the stuff on a frozen item, nor in a canned item. This is silly posturing and nothing more. Faggot.