before…

Florence’s father came back from the Camargue with the most beautiful cherry tomatoes grown by one of his hunting buddies, a very muddy and happy bird dog, and four gorgeous wild ducks, which he insisted on giving to me. He removed the guts for me, and offered to clean them further, but I was due back in St Tropez and so breezily said that I would pluck them and finish the job. My experience of plucking game birds prior to this consisted of plenty of quail (which are so tiny they don’t really count) in Louisiana and Texas, and a few pheasant in Scotland – but I figured that now was as good a time to figure it out as any, and I certainly wasn’t going to say no to such a generous offer of fresh duck.

…. after!

I’ve got to say, I was pretty proud of how clean I got them. The books I consulted talked about burning off the down, or using paraffin wax, but since I wasn’t completely sure (and really, paraffin wax? ugh), I decided just to go for it by hand. I stuck with my usual tactic in these instances, which is to tell myself firmly that little old ladies have been doing these things for centuries without batting an eyelid, it’s not rocket science, and special equipment isn’t necessary. Although I’d like to know what the little old ladies prescribe for extremely aggressive Cote d’Azur wasps who apparently hold wild game in the same high regard that I do and don’t agree that my superior size and opposable thumbs allow me to stake a claim in their territory. It was at moments like a particularly low-budget remake of the end of King Kong, with me roaring curses, flailing one arm and clutching a half-naked duck with the other while being strafed by swarms of stripy buzzing bi-wings.

In the end I got the birds clean and trimmed, left them in the freezer for the next couple of weeks to give the meat a chance to age a little, and then quartered them and cooked the pieces really simply. I seasoned them well, seared the skin, then put the quarters (bone down, skin up) in a large roasting pan, resting on a bed of thyme, rosemary, and sliced onion with a shallow layer of good chicken stock and reduced tart apple juice (left over from making apple butter with the first crop from the garden). I sealed the whole thing with a lid of foil, and put it in a hot oven until the meat was just cooked, and then let it rest for a bit in some of the juices while I made a gravy. Wild duck are very lean compared to the farmed birds we are (sadly) so used to, and the flavor and texture were incredible – distinctly meaty, but tender, sweetly gamey and not at all bitter. I’m deeply grateful to Florence’s father. Ingredients of that quality remind me why I do this, and reconfirm for me the convictions I hold about food and eating.