The Joker Is Wild Game on the Menu

Everybody talks about wild game, especially in the winter, but very few restaurants actually serve it. I got myself into a bit of trouble in this column a few years back by claiming that there was no fresh wild game at all sold in American restaurants. This turned out not to be true. But there still isn’t a lot of it--and, more to the point, a good deal of what is described as “wild game” is as tame as a milk cow or a free-range fryer.

Consider, for example, a fall and winter “wild game” menu I’ve just received from the acclaimed Le Titi de Paris in Arlington Heights, Ill. Among the items offered are duck liver mousse with smoked rabbit sausage, sauteed foie gras with port and truffle sauce, and roast pigeon salad with cherry vinegar. Now, unless somebody actually goes out and shoots it, neither duck nor rabbit are wild game--and both, in fact, are raised commercially much as chicken is raised. Pigeon is likewise a domesticated fowl, at least for restaurant purposes. And foie gras is about as far from wild game as I can imagine, since the ducks or geese that yield it are confined and force-fed to enlarge their livers.

Calling such items “wild game” (or, for that matter, “game” at all) mocks an ancient culinary tradition and I think diners ought to declare open season on the practice.

EATING AROUND: Chefs from three of Italy’s poshest hotels-- Venice’s Cipriani, Florence’s Villa San Michele and Portofino’s Hotel Splendido--are sending their chefs to the Bel-Air Hotel to prepare an Italian Gastronomic Festival, Feb. 7-10. Special Italian dishes and wines will be featured. For information, call (213) 472-1211. . . . Gourmet 88, a Mandarin/Chinese restaurant, has opened in Glendale at 315 N. Brand Blvd.