How to Demolish A Duck

If you have a handy half hour to spare, you might want to consider boning a duck. Perhaps you have already done all your housework and are bored. You might be on holiday, and have grown tired of lazing by your pool. Or you could be a young housewife who wants to impress her husband by serving him a dinner of authentic Pa-pao-ya, Eight-Jewel Duck. If so, you may be thinking that after he sees your culinary expertise, he’ll reward you with those eight jewels. You’d be wrong. He’s going to take one look at the deflated waterfowl and demand pizza.

Whatever you do, don’t use your regular household scissors to attempt to de-bone a duck. Sewing scissors are also not recommended. You’ll also need a sharp knife, a sturdy cutting board, and a first-aid kit handy for when you slice through one or many of your fingers. In this case, it is best to prepare the area with ample paper towels and a telephone for dialing 911.

The best thing about this instructional diagram is the level of detail in the illustrations. Hold the book at arm’s length and see if you can detect the thin red lines which indicate the flesh of the duck, as opposed to the thin black lines which represent the loose skin. Try not to adjust reading glasses with grease-slick hands.

The Cooking of China, Time-Life Books, 1968

Quackery

The pleasure center for both gourmands and word nerds is the mouth. One tastes flavors and textures; the other language. Often, the two are one and the same. For instance: the word canard.

A canard is both a French duck and a deliberate falsehood, a lie. How are they related?

Barrett's Mandrake Embrocation - total quackery

When a predator threatens a duck’s offspring, the duck will draw the predator’s attention away from them by appearing to be the bigger spoil, the easier target. It does this by quacking loudly and affecting a broken wing. Once the predator moves in, it discovers that the duck is feigning injury and can peck and jab very well indeed, driving it off. Thus are deceptions called canards, especially deceits promulgated knowingly to perpetuate a set of myths. The word made this leap in the middle ages, with the phrase “vendre des canards à moitié,” which means to cheat, to half-sell something.

To duck — to crouch to avoid a projectile — is also used to mean to avoid something, to duck a charge, say. Ducks physically duck their heads into the water when feeding. A quack is an imposter, someone who delivers false knowledge, such as a quack doctor. Quackery is the ancient term describing nonsense delivered as truth.

It is possible, then, for a person to duck from a canard from a quack practicing quackery.

Which is delicious.

 Cooks and Confectioner’s Dictionary, John Nott, 1723

Also from this book: Blood Pudding, Tits, Mead, Scurvy, Scourge Of The Seas, Sugared Plums (Ouch), Gastropub / Gastropig: Eating High on the Hog, Take Your Lumps, Pigeon à la Française, This Little Piggy...