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Wild Ducks Roasted in the Ashes
Hang ducks until tender. Rub well, inside and out, with salt and pepper. Stuff with a few slices of bacon and a big cucumber pickle. Wrap each bird in heavy brown paper, tying so juices cannot escape. Set in hot ashes, cover with more hot ashes, and roast for an hour. Serve with brandied peaches and tart jelly.
A camp method for wild duck that relies on a wrapped parcel and banked ashes rather than an oven. Most of it translates directly; a few details need updating.
- The hinge: a sealed parcelEverything depends on the wrapping holding the juices, since ashes will otherwise dry the bird and grit will get in. Tie the parcel so no seam gapes, and turn it once at the halfway point.
- Brown paperThe recipe means plain, unprinted heavy wrapping paper. Modern brown paper and grocery bags often contain recycled fiber, inks and sizing that are not meant for food contact; use parchment against the bird, with a second outer layer for strength.
- "Hang ducks until tender"This is game aging, which was once done in a cold larder or an outbuilding in freezing weather. Age plucked or unplucked birds in a refrigerator at 34-40F for two to four days; do not hang waterfowl at room temperature.
- Ash heatA bed of ashes over a burned-down hardwood fire gives a falling, uneven heat that cannot be read off any number. The recipe's hour suits a small bird; a large mallard will need longer, and raking fresh coals under the parcel keeps the heat from fading. Judge by the thermometer, not the clock.
- DonenessWild waterfowl carries salmonella and campylobacter risk, so unlike a restaurant's pink-breasted duck this should reach 165F at the thigh. A probe thermometer through a slit in the paper is the only reliable check in ashes.
- The pickle and baconThe bacon bastes the lean breast from inside, and the cucumber pickle carries acid and moisture that cut the strong taste of a wild duck. 'A big cucumber pickle' most likely means a whole brined pickle rather than a small sweet one. Both are aromatics for the cavity and are usually discarded rather than served.
- ShotFeel over the breast and thighs for pellets before wrapping. Aging and cooking do nothing to them, and a tooth finds them at the table.
- Yield and servingOne small duck per person, half a large mallard. The brandied peaches and tart jelly -- currant was the common choice -- were a familiar sweet-acid accompaniment to dark game; a spoonful of each on the plate, not a sauce.
Ash roasting is older than any stove in these books: a parcel buried in the spent fire cooks by falling, even heat while the cook does something else, which is why it survives in hunting and camp literature long after kitchens had ranges. The paper wrapping does the same job as two grander techniques -- the clay case and the pastry crust or 'coffin' -- all three trapping steam around a lean bird. Brandied peaches and a sharp jelly were a familiar accompaniment to wild, dark-fleshed meat, the sweetness and acid set against the strong note duck picks up from its feeding grounds. Hanging game 'until tender' was likewise common advice in the era of the cold larder rather than the refrigerator.