Duck!

Roasted the lonely duckling from my freezer last night...goodness gracious, why does that sound SO wrong? it was yummy...I think I freaked out my friend Miss Vilya by telling her stories how we eat duck and duck parts in Hungary.

You see, in my homeland we love grease. We have long, hard winters, cold, rainy falls and hot summers, so we need all the energy we can get to make it through, traditionally. So: when a duckie is roasted, we do not SKIM the fat and THROW IT AWAY, or TAKE THE SKIN OFF AND DISCARD...Nooo. In MY family, you take the duck, cut it up, put it on a plate, put some potatoes next to it mashed with onions sauteed in the duck fat, add some red cabbage also sauteed in the duck fat, add some dill pickles, garnish the whole thing with two big slices of crusty potato bread to sop of ALL the grease that is sloshing on your plate gloriously, and slam it in front of your guest. With Pilsen-type beer. And be annoyed it they don''t ask for seconds.

Aand...after the duck is eaten, you pour the rest of the grease left in the roasting pan into a jar (glass or, in older households, one of those cute enameled lard pots with two handles and a hinged lid) and store it in the fridge. If you had the duck's liver, you poured milk and some of the grease on it, and sauteed it on the stove until tender, then stored it likewise, and for a quick but entirely satisfying fall-winter dinner, you tooklarge slices of bread, smeared duck lard over it, sprinkled with salt and paprika, sliced some onions and duck liver on it, and ate it drinking hot tea with sugar and lemon as a chaser.

Fortunately, my family does have a gene for swift fat metabolism, so I could have something like this once a week and not get fat, except that fateful year when I was attending the majordomo school and we had to eat everything we cooked, so I kinda ballooned up--I have photos! It all came off during first year as an archeology student-fieldwork does that to you.

The duck is gone, of course. Even the cats looked smug and happy last night.