D’Artagnan, a twenty-four-year-old, New Jersey-based company, bills itself as “the favorite food purveyor of chefs.” If you’ve ever bought foie gras, guinea hen, or wild boar bacon from an upscale grocer, chances are you have eaten D’Artagnan products.
Owner Ariane Daguin, who like Dumas’s D’Artagnan hails from France’s Gascony region, drew her inspiration for the Duckathlon from a French wine competition.
"I always dreamed of doing something close to what they have in Paris, the Marathon des leveurs de coude,” she tells reason. “Where you go to all the St. Germain cafes, and you drink at every café, and you are in a team formation. Except I wanted it to be more gastronomic."
Though a culinary challenge and promotional event first, Daguin also sees the Duckathlon as an opportunity to push back against the food police, calling it a “counterbalance to people who are trying to limit our choice in food and life.”
The Challenge
The Chelsea Market, near the edge of the Meatpacking District, was home to this year’s event—though D’Artagnan kept the site secret to all but competitors and press, no doubt to discourage the appearance of foie gras protestors who, like pretentious cockroaches, seem to materialize only where excellent food is served.
Most of the twenty Duckathlon events took place at restaurants and bars immediately around the market. The challenges were often as surreal as those faced by D’Artagnan and his fellow musketeers. In the Saucisson Fan-Dangle, contestants donned hoop skirts and—in repeated squats—blindly maneuvered an especially phallic sausage, tied at the waist, into the opening of a milk jug as many times possible within a two-minute time limit.
I found Scott Gold, blogger and author of a recently published meat paean, The Shameless Carnivore: A Manifesto for Meat Lovers, manning the Testicle Festival challenge. Gold, a Brooklyn resident, defends meat eating, and staunchly opposes foie gras bans. Still, he supports the city’s menu-labeling requirements, and isn’t so sure where he stands on the city’s trans fat ban.
“As far as banning trans fats, I don’t know if that’s such a great idea,” Gold tells reason. “But then again, trans fats are useless. I don’t see any reason, as long as you’re cooking decent food, that you should have trans fat at all.”
The tenor of Gold’s comments is echoed by Josh Ozersky, who edits the Grub Street food blog for New York magazine.
“I don’t think, in its upper reaches, New York City is a food nanny state at all,” says Ozersky, also author of the recently published The Hamburger, to reason. “It’s closer to a sybaritic free-for-all.”
Ozersky and Gold are probably both right. The city’s worst food laws don’t really impact those in the “upper reaches” who choose to eat subjectively “decent food.”
So while the city has hundreds of outstanding restaurants, each likely claiming thousands of devoted customers, it also has millions of residents who can’t afford (or be bothered) to eat in them. Those people instead frequent the inexpensive chain restaurants city regulators target.
New York City might be foodie heaven, but if you’re an eater rather than a gastronome, regulators are increasingly futzing with your food. The food really under fire in New York City right now is not that eaten by, for example, billionaire Michael Bloomberg—whose mayoral manse chefs competed at the Duckathlon—but by everyday diners.
Still, the vigilance of Daguin, her staff, and Duckathlon participants is as important as it is admirable.
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|6.11.08 @ 5:22PM|#
There is probably no better place in America to hold an event celebrating and defending haute cuisine
Las Vegas. Arguably on par if not better than NYC and you don't have to bribe a city official to get a table.
Oh and I'm not feeling this competition. How does this cross between Fear Factor and Survivor promote Haute cuisine exactly?
Rhywun|6.11.08 @ 5:26PM|#
The title almost scared me off, but I'm glad I read the article anyway... I can assure you that it's not just gastronomes who are resenting all this intrusion into our lives. The city council--stuffed with professional activist/politicians--is widely regarded as out of control, and out of touch, by almost everybody.
|6.11.08 @ 5:30PM|#
The Testicle Festival -- or "Testy Festy" as it's known in these parts -- is a giant beer-and-tits-and-bull-ball party about 20 miles down the road from where I live.
Yummy bull testicles. Seriously. Good stuff.
And plenty of chicks who will suck your dick for free.
www.testyfesty.com.
|6.11.08 @ 5:35PM|#
So, Baylen Linnekin ...
They've blatantly ripped off our name. The original "Testical Festival" is near Clinton, Montana.
I think you should get your city ass out here and cover it.
|6.11.08 @ 6:47PM|#
For me, the calorie postings go down with the smoking-in-bars ban: things I am philosophically absolutely opposed to, but which I am nonetheless thoroughly enjoying the benefits of.
Look, I don't like government intervention at all, but I have to say this one's pretty tame. The targeted restaurants have portions that are rigorously controlled; therefore it's pretty easy to test everything once and extrapolate the calorie content to all future servings. The postings certainly don't look like they were real tough to put up.
Furthermore, though I am actually a person who has been known to look up nutritional facts on, say, Chipotle or McDonalds online from time to time, the postings have made me change my order several times, and have helped me reign in my eating habits.
Again, philosophically I'm against it, but it's hard for me to get too worked up over it when I like the results so much.
|6.11.08 @ 6:48PM|#
The city council--stuffed with professional activist/politicians--is widely regarded as out of control, and out of touch, by almost everybody.
I need to hang out with your friends Rhywun. I don't know a single person (other than me) who thinks this.
|6.11.08 @ 6:49PM|#
Warren,
Sure, the best places in Vegas are on par with the best in NY, but c'mon, there's nowhere near the variety of great eating options.
My Vegas faves are Alize and Craftsteak. Of course, the latter is available in NY anyway.
Anonymoose.|6.11.08 @ 8:29PM|#
Chicago would be better, having a far better selection of high-quality restaurants.
The Bearded Hobbit|6.11.08 @ 8:47PM|#
.. so what city has the best restaraunts that I don't have to wear a tie in??
.. Hobbit
The Bearded Hobbit|6.11.08 @ 8:48PM|#
.. crap, "restaurants" ..
.. sheesh,
.. Blushing Hobbit
|6.11.08 @ 10:10PM|#
In NYC at least, the millions of residents who can't afford to eat in its haute cuisine restaurants don't have to resort to food from chain eateries. They also have the option of eating great food in many inexpensive restaurants of all kinds. I've had great Chinese, Thai, Indian, and Mexican food in NY that was also cheap. They may have to leave Manhattan to find it, though.
Nigel Watt|6.12.08 @ 10:08AM|#
That's not exclusive to New York City at all. I've had similar experiences in Ithaca, NY and Greenville, SC, neither exactly a mecca of culture.
Bob|6.12.08 @ 11:10AM|#
What exactly is the problem with requiring vendors to provide relevant product information to consumers? Isn't that the kind of market transparency that you libertarians are supposedly in favor of? Nobody is telling anyone what to order, or preventing anyone from ordering whatever they like; the city is simply forcing restaurants to provide information relevant to the decision. And the fact that it's available elsewhere cuts both ways-- if the information is already public, why not make it more readily accessible?