There’s nothing like being in a foreign land to inspire one to cook some of the fine produce of the country. As I consider ‘D’, the next letter in the Picnic Game alphabet, I can’t help but laugh when I think of one of my closest calls with culinary disaster. Who in their right mind would bring roast duck to a picnic? Or buy one to cook in someone else’s pristine kitchen?
To tell this yarn, let’s ramble back in time to the first months Tim and I spent in England. We had found a little ground-floor flat in Ealing Broadway within our first week or two in Britain. (My new employers weren’t about to pay for us to hang about in a b&b forever…) It was a very square little 1970s block, with a bit of lawn, some hedges, and parking. A less notable selling point, for those on higher floors, was a fine view over the Central Line and BritRail tracks.
But we thought it a great place to land. We were equidistant between two convenient tube lines, convenient to the North Circular Road, and walking distance to all manner of shops. In one direction, Ealing Broadway Centre’s Safeway and all our staples. In the other, West Acton, which was even more handy when we moved to Mayfield Road. The little parade of shops had an off-license (wine and liquor store), a newsagent (where I’d buy my morning Guardian to read on the tube to work), and a fishmonger. And a microscopic general store that sold the basics (loo roll, tinned tomato sauce and boxed pasta, milk, butter).
Best of all was walking home from Ealing Common. When we first moved to the area, it boasted a proper greengrocer and an even more proper butcher.
Cold counters, warm staff
Both shops had iced counters for lettuces and lamb, respectively. The greengrocer branched out into dairy at one point, and eventually turned over part of the shop to boxed breakfast cereal, ersatz Indian curry pastes, and cigarettes behind the till. But the butcher was Old School, and meticulous about the impeccably clean, white ceramic wall tiles and the hexagonal black-and-white floor tiles. In season, the plate-glass window on Uxbridge Road displayed feathered and furred game, then spring lamb and beef for summer barbecue kebabs.
According to the well-fed, rather red-faced chap behind the counter, one of the best things to buy there was duck. And so on my first payday that coincided with a big holiday (I think it might have been Thanksgiving — about which the butcher cared not one bit), I splurged on a duck.
Tim and I had travelled light to Britain: boxes, trunks and shipping containers of our American lives had yet to arrive. In my case, such a box would include at least a half-dozen cookbooks! But, encouraged by my new bestie, Kay, I’d purchased a glossy paperback cookbook at Marks & Spencer. It described seasonal dishes, complete with A4 sized photographs, from April’s asparagus to December’s fruitcake; there was a recipe for roast duck ‘suitable for any season.’ Armed with English instructions, I felt sure I could tackle an English duck. After all, I’d once been a medieval scholar, and had roasted a capon in my college kitchen.
Wait, it weighs what?
The jolly butcher agreed to sell me a fine duck… He plonked his selection on the counter and beamed at me: it was large enough to feed a family of six, I think. Not wishing to be disagreeable, I bought it. My grocery bag already stuffed, I stopped next door at the greengrocer for new potatoes, a jar of orange marmalade, and a bottle of plausible Chianti.
Not until I’d dumped the shopping on the foot-square counter in the rental property’s compact kitchen did I realize I’d seriously overestimated the capacity of the oven. And underestimated the problems inherent in maneuvering an oversized duck, nestled in an exceptionally snug roasting pan, into said oven without bumping into the kitchen’s back wall. I put the potatoes on to boil, softened the marmalade in a pan with a slosh of wine, poured a slosh of wine in a glass for myself, and wedged the duck into the oven. The kitchen soon became steamy and aromatic. The first turn of the duck went smoothly — although my glasses were too steamed up to see the marmalade baste spill onto the floor. I hummed and poured another bit of wine, and put superfluous butter on the potatoes.
Alas, the second turn of the duck brought down disaster. Unable to distinguish slick floor from safe, I crouched down to haul the duck out for another baste of buttered marmalade. I’d utterly neglected how much fat a duck of this dimension could throw off, and into a pan with no room for error let alone hot grease. I slipped, the pan banged down on the open oven door, the duck attempted its escape, and oily marmalade went everywhere.
Duck a l’orange becomes an inside joke
I hit the floor with a thump and a shriek that must have made the upstairs neighbors think the District Line was detouring through the Embassy Court parking lot.
Timothy, bless him, hustled to the kitchen door instantly, but could do nothing to rescue me or the bird: the kitchen was too small for the three of us. Once it was evident I’d not suffered concussion, nor 2nd degree burns, he threw me a roll of paper towels from a safe distance. Adding greasy wheels to the chaos would not have helped anyone.
I struggled to my feet, knees slick with duck a l’orange, and burst into sobbing laughter. The duck was so firmly wedged in the pan, it had hit the floor right side up, undamaged. The rest of dinner was equally unhurt, while I suffered only one large, plum-coloured bruise on my butt and a compound fracture of dignity.
Some time later, I stopped into the Ealing Common butcher and reported the duck delicious, but perhaps too large for a family of two. (We didn’t even have the cats in Britain to help eat up the leftovers.) He obliged with an right-sized alternative: a pair of perfectly proportioned duck breasts. The skin could be scored and much of the fat safely melted away in a hot oven or broiler. While sauce a l’orange would have been just as tasty as on a full-grown duckling, I somehow could not face the prospect of a rematch.
And so, in our house, duck breasts were generally served Montmorency, sauced with black cherries and brandy. The marmalade was reserved for morning toast. And duck a l’orange became an in-joke signifying culinary disaster narrowly averted forever afterwards.
Banner photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels