Not Quite the Way Mom Did It

I was certainly not the only teenage duck hunter who drew the short swampgrass straw and had to strip down to swim out and set the decoys. It was in a remote and secluded location at a beaver pond that had never been hunted before, according to the behavior of the ducks. We made blinds. Ducks arrived shortly before dusk.

We would not have needed decoys. The ducks had obviously been bedding down here on a nightly basis for years, through generations. We stood, we shot, all five of us. We dropped ducks, they left, returned, we shot, they left, and returned. This continued for an hour. We stood unhid on the beaver dam, laughing and shooting. The ducks kept coming.

In those days, some 4o yrs ago, our moms cooked those ducks in the traditional way. Each bird dressed w/ 2 bacon strips, and roasted forever in a dry pan. It worked. They tasted of dryness and burnt bacon. Not bad for wild game. It was our duty to eat them.

It would be years before I would discover that duck was my favorite wild game, when prepared in a learned and skillful way. But simply.

You can roast them whole. Add carrots, celery, onions and garlic to the roasting pan, along w/ salt, black pepper and thyme, a cup of water and a cup of red wine, cover and roast for about an hour. Do put the bacon strips on them, thick sliced. Uncover for the last ten minutes if you want them nice and browned. You could add potatoes also, at the beginning, and whole regular white mushrooms or any kind about half way thru the roasting. Check for moisture at that point, and add more water if necessary. The resultant broth could be thickened into a gravy or sauce, or leave it thin as jus, which is what I prefer. A wonderful one pot meal, simply and easily made. Vegetables are rich and carmelized and unsurpassed when you cook them this way.

Wish it was duck season.