Not a Peking Duck

My first experience with Peking Duck dates to my first China tour in the summer of 1985. It was a hot and suffocating day. After four hours hiking along the steep walkway of Badaling, the first section of the Great Wall opened for tourism by the Chinese government, we all felt sticky and weary. The tour guide led us to a splendid restaurant and announced we were going to have the well-known dish, Peking Duck, that tonight. The news cheered us up.
Still gulping down glasses of water to satisfy our thirst, the chef brought a full roasted duck over by a cart and started carving it table-side. The knife in the chef’s hand was deftly executed. In two minutes, the duck’s skin was entirely peeled off. The ripened duck’s flesh was tender and juicy. It emanated a savory mix which aroused my appetite. I could not wait to have my first slice of Peking Duck momentarily. Nevertheless, the chef brought the meat and bone of the duck back to the kitchen and left the skin on the table.

I was confused and asked, “Where does the duck meat go?” The tour guide said, “The meat will come back later. Let’s enjoy the skin first.” The duck skin, golden colored, cut into pieces and neatly laid on the plate, gleamed in the restaurant’s spot light. Was the skin of a foreign duck edible? I hesitated to have a try.

I imitated our tour guide’s actions. First, pick up a slice of duck skin with a pair of chopsticks and dip it into the soy paste. Next, lay it on the top of a thin pancake and add some strips of cucumber and green onions. Finally, wrap everything into a bundle with a sheet of the thin pancake.  Before having a bite, I questioned myself. I had never had duck meat before, could I eat its skin?

I cautiously took my first bite and slowly chewed on the mixtures of the ingredients. The duck skin was miraculously crispy and grease-free. The crust crackled in my teeth. Other ingredients with their unique textures were compatible and returned me joy on each nibble.
Mmm... this thing was yummy. I quickly finished up the first wrap and started making the second one. Since then, Peking Duck became one of my favorite dishes of all time.

After I came back to Denver from my first China tour, I browsed through the internet for more information on ”Peking Duck”. I found that Peking Duck has been one of the most distinguished dishes in Beijing with a history of more than 400 years.

In its classic form, this dish calls for a specific breed of duck that is force-fed and housed in a small cage. By restraining them from moving about, inactivity fattens them up and makes the meat comparably tender. The ducks are raised to around 7.5 pounds. As it is killed, its neck and head are left intact. After the entrails are removed, the lower opening is sewed shut. Air is pumped under the skin through the neck cavity to stretch and loosen the skin and separate the skin from the flesh.

The duck is then soaked in boiling water and its skin is rubbed with all of the spices. It is hung in the air for 24 hours. While it is hung, the duck’s skin is glazed with a layer of special syrup. After the skin is dried out and creased, the duck is sent into the oven and roasted at a temperature around 300°C until it turns shiny brown and emits a nice odor.

The documents I read unveiled the secrecy as to why the skin of the Peking Duck is so delicious. The delicate process gives the duck skin a new taste that transforms the skin into an almost potato-chip-like texture very good for biting, but with much richer flavors. This process makes Peking Duck one of the most celebrated dishes in Chinese cuisine for hundreds of years.

In China, when Peking Duck is ordered, only the skin of the duck is served. The meat is taken back into the kitchen to be fried with fresh bean sprouts, and the bone of the duck is made into duck soup. This is known as the “Duck Three Ways”. For a Peking Duck naïvete, the duck meat and duck soup, although tasty, do not give me comparable excitement and joy as its skin does.

Since 1985, I have been to Beijing several times. Ironically, I have not visited the Great Wall or Forbidden City for their grand views ever again, but I have had Peking Duck during each trip. I had Peking Duck in Quanjude Restaurant and all its branch stores. It is heard that the first Quanjude was established in 1864 with a Peking Duck recipe that originated from imperial families. I had Peking Duck in other restaurants too such as LiQun, DaDon and Bianyifang. To avoid a lengthy wait at the popular stores such as Quanjude or DaDon, you must make a call at least one day before to reserve a table. For other restaurants, you can simply show up to enjoy the dish. In my opinion, the Peking Duck served by every restaurant in Beijing has been equally great.

In Denver, many Chinese restaurants also offer roast duck. However it is not Peking Duck, but Cantonese roasted duck to which the delicate process on the duck’s skin is not applied. Cantonese roasted duck is served with skin, meat, bone and fat together. It is accompanied with buns and not pancakes.
Several years ago, I located a restaurant called King’s Land on West Alameda, whose Peking Duck shows some similarity to the authentic Chinese Peking Duck of Beijing. The skin of the duck prepared by King’s Land is crispy and nearly grease-free. It can be a sufficient substitute to extinguish my occasional sensory desire for an authentic Peking Duck when I am in Denver.

During the Chinese New Year weekend, I ordered a feast of ten dishes at King’s Land with several close friends of mine to celebrate the new year. As you can guess, it included Peking Duck and I was thrilled to again get another experience with eating Peking Duck. My story has entered my friends’ ears many times, until one of them suggested for me to write an article about it. Hence, my writing.

At the end of the feast, one of my Chinese friends proposed a toast. He wished for all of us to “not let a cooked duck fly away” in the coming year. He explained that it is a Chinese saying, that means don’t let a golden opportunity slip off your hands. I was surprised that “a cooked duck” had by extension come to mean “a golden opportunity” in Chinese. I would like to borrow this Chinese saying to end my writing by wishing all the AAm’s readers who enjoy cooked ducks, many golden opportunities in this coming year.