Foie Gras a Faux Pas? Kimihiro Hoshino/Agence France-Presse - Getty Images The last ducks at a foie gras farm in Farmington, Calif. This is the last week for legal foie gras in California. A law to shut down the making, cooking and selling of super-fatty goose or duck liver takes effect July 1. Chowhounds from Chico to Chula Vista have been opening their wallets for restaurants" foie gras menus, gorging themselves like birds before the winter migration. The law's purpose is to end gavage, the ancient practice of forcing grain down the throat of a goose or duck until its liver is grossly enlarged. The law's critics say gavage is hardly more stress-inducing than the many other things humans do to the animals they eat. The corporate operations that grow and slaughter pigs, poultry and cattle represent animal cruelty on an immense scale, they say, about which the foie gras ban does nothing. But the law's supporters argue that even small steps toward humaneness are important, and point to several countries in Europe that have banned foie gras. It is not known how energetically the state will enforce the ban and if any restaurant chefs will be willing to risk a $1,000 fine. Chicago enacted a foie gras ban in 2006. It was widely mocked and flouted and, after a couple of years, repealed. Chefs in California are already pushing for a repeal bill. Meanwhile, "faux gras" recipes are proliferating on the Web. One chef suggests soaking chicken livers overnight in milk with garlic, thyme, salt and pepper, searing them briefly, then puréeing them in a food processor with half their weight in soft butter. It's your basic chicken-liver mousse, not foie gras but good. "You could mix almost anything with half its weight in butter and have a very nice spread," said Mark Bittman, one of The Times's experts on such things.