ON PRESSING DUCKS, THE WORLD'S MOST SAVAGELY DECADENT MEAL

Originally published November 22, 2011 for The Gentleman Tramp

Thanksgiving is poultry’s finest hour, specifically for the turkey who spends the rest of the year as sandwich meat.  Indeed, the eating of a bird rarely aligns with special occasions, which I suppose is on account of their limited size.  Even though Thanksgiving belongs to the turkey, that cumbersome, giant sleeping pill of a bird, I want to talk about the duck, in particular the pressing of a duck, a recipe far more interesting and far more storied than anything that will land upon the table this Thursday.   

It goes by many names, this the dish that introduced Julia Child to French cuisine: Canard à la Rouennaise, Canard à la Presse, Canard au Sang (Duck in Blood Sauce) or simply, Pressed Duck as we call it back home.  Emperors, kings and presidents have feasted on this delicacy for centuries.  So specialized in its preparation, only a handful of restaurants in the world include it on their menu.  The most famous of which, La Tour d’Argent in Paris, numbers each and every one––#328: King Edward Vll, #33,642: Theodore Roosevelt, #253,652: Charlie Chaplin, and #1,092,480: digested by yours truly.  The recipe involves generous amounts of blood, carcass, livers and lungs rung through a duck press, a wildly expensive brass contraption whose sole function on Earth is to make this one thing.  How then did Pressed Duck become a staple in my decidedly non-gourmand upbringing?      

It begins with my father, avid duck hunter and duck eater.  Sometime in the early 80’s, not long after marrying my mother, he happened upon the recipe in The New York Times.  A few months later when asked what he would like for Christmas, he casually listed a duck press, thinking it was the kitchen equivalent of a waffle iron.  The request was forwarded to his new in-laws––his wealthy, but notoriously cheap in-laws––who, in a second act of fate, actually bought their plucky son-in-law his press.  “Most expensive goddamn Christmas present I ever bought,” could be heard grumbled through my grandfather’s teeth for the next 25 years or so.   

Thus it came to be that this tool of French haute cuisine made its way to the plains of Eastern Minnesota.  For my entire childhood the mysterious brass wheel––which looks like it broke off a steam ship––gathered dust, biding its time as various litigations and lawyerly tasks usurped my father’s leisure.  It wasn’t until I was in high school that he found himself with a freezer full of ducks and a conviction to press one.  With an old copy of From Julia Child’s Kitchen as his guide, he set forth to press his first duck.  

Typical to French cooking, the dish manages to be both simple and vexing.  A whole duck is roasted very, very rare.  The legs and wings are removed and baked with a crumb and mustard crust (the mustard crust is unique to Julia’s recipe which she modified from La Couronne’s recipe, this the restaurant that has been making some version of pressed duck for the last 600 years.)  The breasts are filleted.  The remaining warm carcass is placed in the screw press with a bit of Burgundy and crushed until it releases all its bloody juices.  Sieved livers, butter and cognac are added to the jus which is then used to poach the breasts.  A dusting of scallions or shallots finishes it off.  Timing poses the greatest challenge, especially the last steps, which are supposed to be done table side, a task made even more challenging by the duck press, which––how’s this for irony––is a rather unwieldy instrument for pressing ducks.  Ideally, it should be bolted to a surface, but we make do with the non-business end of a broom stick slid underneath. 

I remember that first go, getting to flambé the cognac.  I remember the unsightly livers going through the sieve.  I remember the sound of cracking bones.  But mostly, I remember the taste.  The sauce has an indescribable depth, not just flavor upon flavor, but a sort of ancient presence that seemed to breach my very core.  Just as Ratatouille’s titular ratatouille ripcords the impervious Anton Ego into an emotional trance, so was I teleported from the suburbs to … someplace else, someplace more civilized.  There was, in a single bite, the memory of a more refined world, but also a more savage one.  I was, after all, drinking the blood of another animal.   

Left: Pressed Duck at Home  Right: Pressed Duck at La Tour

I am not sure if my little sister, mother and father went to quite so primal a place as I did, but loved by one and all, and ideal for four people, Pressed Duck became our special family recipe. “How many other family’s in the State of Minnesota do you think are eating this meal tonight?” my father likes to ask, and I like to respond with complete confidence, “none.”  

While I always knew the dish was special, insofar as, how many people in the world actually own a duck press and keep a year round supply of wild duck in their freezer, it wasn’t until a few years ago, when I was living in Paris, that I discovered its infamy.  Naturally, a pilgrimage to La Tour was in order and so I went with two friends for my 29th birthday.  Expectations couldn’t have been higher.  Finally, I would get to taste the real mccoy.  Chez Meyer, we cook with wild ducks while you’re supposed to use the half-wild, half-domesticated Rouennaise duck.  These ducks are strangled, so as to keep all the blood in residence.  Most of the internal organs are also kept for the press.  Our ducks are smaller, organ free, have less fat and obviously less blood.  

So how did La Tour compare to Canard à la Meyer?  Never meet your heros.  Even though my duck was presented in a magnificent silver bowl before its pressing, the rest of the production was done in the kitchen (perhaps table side service must be specially requested).  The legs and wings, which came out as a first course, were fine, but I missed Julia’s mustard crust.  The main event, as expected, was bloodier, thicker, richer.  It was also much more spicy, distractingly so.  The duck itself had a more subtle flavor, but I missed the wild duck’s intensity.  I missed my copious frites too.  How is one supposed to sop up the extra sauce with three little puffs of potato?  There I was, quite literally, eating the fanciest meal at the fanciest restaurant in the world and it couldn’t compete with home.  When it comes to those special family dishes, restaurants rarely can.