Duck

duck a bird which exists in many wild species right round the world (see wild duck), but of which the domesticated kinds are those commonly eaten. Domestication began over 2,000 years ago in China, and was being practised in classical Rome (witness Columella, 1st century ad) and has been pursued with enthusiasm in many parts of the world. In Europe and N. America almost all domesticated breeds stem from the mallard duck, but they exhibit considerable differences in size, appearance, etc.

Some breeds of duck, e.g. Indian Runner, are reared for laying purposes, and may produce as many as 200 eggs (larger than hen’s eggs) a year. But the demand for duck eggs has never been overwhelming except perhaps in the Philippines—see balut—and S. China, where they are best for ‘thousand-year-old’ eggs. Most ducks are bred for table use. The principal such breeds are:

• Aylesbury, named after an English town, in the county of Buckinghamshire, which offered propitious surroundings for duck-rearing. These are white ducks. The meat is pale and tender. Laura Mason (1996) quotes a charming passage from Mrs Beeton (1861) about what was once a cottage industry in parts of Buckinghamshire:

  [the birds were raised] in the abodes of the cottagers. Round the walls of the living-rooms, and of the bedroom even, are fixed rows of wooden boxes, lined with hay; and it is the business of the wife and children to nurse and comfort the feathered lodgers, to feed the little ducklings, and to take the old ones out for an airing.

  However, enquiries in the 1990s showed that there was only one producer left.

• Norfolk. Most English duck and ducklings are labelled ‘Norfolk’, that county being the most important British centre of production of birds which match the needs of restaurants and conform to the latest hygiene requirements.

• Peking. A fine breed. When first imported to Britain in the 19th century it was used to give new vigour to the Aylesbury breed, but was later bred for its own sake. In the USA it gave rise to what has become the most successful breed ever in the western world (see Long Island). The Gressingham is a modern hybrid of the Peking and the wild mallard.

• Long Island. Best, best known, and most widely sold of American ducks, this breed is descended from white Peking birds imported from China in 1873. These were introduced first to Connecticut and then to Long Island, where they flourished well. They grow fast to a good weight.

• Nantes. From early in the 19th century the small Nantais ducks (strictly speaking, from Challans, Nantes being the point from which they were dispatched to Paris) enjoyed a good reputation, and this eventually came to rival that of the larger Rouen breed. Nantais ducks are beheaded and bled before sale.

• Rouen. A famous French breed, traditionally smothered to death so as to preserve all the blood inside. The famous dish Caneton à la rouennaise calls for the carcass of the cooked bird to be squeezed in a special press, to extract all the juices. The Tour d’Argent restaurant in Paris, in a brilliant marketing operation which began in 1890, has every instance of the dish numbered (in a sequence which is poised to reach one million early in the 3rd millennium—Charlie Chaplin was 253,652, way back).

Muscovy ducks are of a different species: Cairina moschata, of C. and S. America. They make good eating, especially when crossed with other ducks to diminish their tendency to muskiness. (Their name has nothing to do with muskiness or with Muscovy, perhaps deriving from the name of the indigenous people, the Muysca of Nicaragua, where they were first encountered. In S. Europe and N. Africa they are called Barbary duck, in Brazil the Brazilian, in Spain the pato, and in the Guyanas of S. America, the Guinea or Turkish duck.)

One of the most interesting treatments given to duck in the kitchen is Welsh salt duck, the recipe for which first appeared in print in the charmingly eccentric book by Lady Llanover (1867). This was described and praised by Elizabeth David (1970), who drew attention to the resemblance between it and ‘Nanking fresh salted duck’, while remarking that the latter is eaten cold while the Welsh dish was originally intended to be eaten hot with an onion sauce.

In England the most familiar and excellent combination is roast duckling with apple sauce and peas, a dish of the late spring. In France (and, alas, in debased international cuisine) there is the well-known Canard à l’orange (or à la bigarade, using the recommended Seville oranges); and a good dish of duck with turnip. In other countries there are combinations which reflect the characteristics of their cuisines, for example duck and red cabbage in Poland; the use of sour cream, apple, etc. in E. Europe; the Iranian braised duck with walnut and pomegranate sauce (see fesenjan).

peking duck is, however, probably the most famous of all duck dishes.

1. Reading Stobart (1980);
2. Urquhart (1983).