A Duck For Dinner: A Source-to-Table Fable
A Duck For Dinner: A Source-to-Table Fable

• From Capture to Cleanup, a Duck for Dinner •

Where I live in Northern California we have a rich supply of wild foods.

I’ve often thought to cook a meal from things that grow nearby:

  • watercress and crawfish from the creek
  • blackberries from the brambles
  • quail
  • wild radish and
  • mustard from the meadow

Add a few chanterelle mushrooms collected under our grove of ancient oak trees and that would be a meal!

Well, maybe some day.

For the time being, I’ll depend on the wild bounty my cousin Danny finds when he’s out hunting.

Waterfowl season starts in late fall and is just now coming to an end. Every year the natural wetlands and rice farms of the Central Valley are crowded with ducks and geese visiting for the winter. After the rice harvest in the fall, the migrating birds arrive just in time to consume the grain that’s been left behind.

Hunters follow strict rules regarding the number and species they can shoot in a day, to maintain a healthy balance.

Some days Danny returns empty-handed. But then there are the days when skill and opportunity combine to produce a full bag.

The hunter’s reward—canvasback, pintail, mallard and widgeon.

This year I’ve plucked and cleaned my share of ducks, including mallards, pintail and wood ducks, any of which make for good eating.

Last week I roasted a mallard for dinner with a friend. I love the mallard’s plumage—particularly the males—with their dark green heads, flashes of blue and purple on the wings and their curly black tails. Mallards are relatively easy to pluck, but even when you are careful the fluffy down gets everywhere. I’m still finding “down bunnies” in odd corners of my kitchen.

The mallard we roasted had eaten its fill of rice and had a lovely layer of fat under the skin. It only needed a quick rub with some soft butter and a sprinkling of salt and pepper before going into a very hot oven for 25 minutes.

Our duck, ready for roasting.

My friend had found some fresh green chick peas at the market. We shelled out as many as we had patience for—you only get one or two in each pod—and cooked them for about ten minutes in just enough salted water to cover, with a big pinch of dried herbs.

After most of the water boiled away they were dressed with a drizzle of olive oil. The herby legumes accented the rich wild flavor of the duck. A few sautéed potatoes completed the picture.

I really should have tried to find some watercress!

Wild duck for dinner.

Alan Tangren is DooF’s Director of Food Operations

Eat Local, Not Loco!
Eat Local, Not Loco!

A STEER NAMED LEROY HIS BARRIER-BREAKING EFFORTS TO GAIN ACCESS TO LOCALLY GROWN FOOD –

You may have heard the term locavore, meaning someone who eats local.

But what does it really mean to eat local?

Where do you start?

Eating Local as a State of Mind

Enjoying their post-Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie

Enjoying their post-Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie

It seems to me that it’s more a state of mind than anything with clearly defined boundaries.

For me, it starts at the pasture about 100 yards from my farmhouse that is home for a couple of beef cattle. Sheep graze in their own space nearby. Deer live just around the corner in a patch of woods. And I know that someday meat from any of these animals may end up on my table.

During this time of year, the steers love to eat the pumpkins left over from the fall harvest.  The pumpkins will impart a certain sweetness to the meat, but more important, the pumpkins don’t end up in the compost pile.

In fact I know a lot about the steers: what they eat; how they are cared for, and by whom; what happens when they are slaughtered.

But my situation is hardly that of the average consumer.

Ways for You to Eat Local

How can you “eat local” if the nearest farm is miles away?

  • Know who grows your food – For me, eating local has everything to do with knowing who grows your food and how they care for the land. Sure, if you live near a farm those questions are easy to answer. But what if you don’t? Start at the store where you shop. Look for signage that describes the produce and where it was grown. If you still have questions, ask the manager where the potatoes are from, or where did the pigs grow up. If they can’t answer those questions, find a store where they can.
  • Shop your local Farmers markets – In the San Francisco Bay Area, farmers markets continue to thrive in both the big cities and smaller communities alike. They are a great place to meet the person who grows your food. If the farmer can’t be at the market, maybe the person selling the farm’s goods has been to the farm and can tell you about it. Learning a little about the farm gives you a stake in its success, and lets the farmer learn about you.
  • Grow your own food – Look for a community garden in your neighborhood or start a garden in your backyard. You may not be able to grow everything you need, but you’ll get to know every step in the process, from soil to seed to plant to harvest. It’s a thrill to feed yourself and those you love with something you grew.

The Story of Leroy

The other evening just after sunset I was sitting in my living room, having a drink with my young cousin, Danny. He’s the kind of person who is aware of everything, and he was watching the wildlife just outside, in the darkening gloom. The quail had settled down for the night, and a handsome buck with big antlers strolled by, headed for his dinner on my lawn. Suddenly Danny jumped out of his chair. “Leroy is out and he’s coming up to see you!”

Danny loves to joke a lot, but I stepped outside to have a look around anyway. Sure enough, good old Leroy, the longhorn steer, was bounding up the hill toward my house. He usually shares the pasture on the other side of the county road with two other steers, but a gate had broken down and now he was loose. Leroy is a pet and will never end up in the stew pot. He was happily tasting freedom of a limited sort. After half an hour of herding with flashlights, car headlights and horns; with the help of cousins, neighbors and passersby; and lots of shouting and hand waving; we managed to steer Leroy back to the pasture and secure the gate. He was eating local once again.


Alan Tangren is DooF’s Director of Food Operations

A Trip Home to My Family Farm

In 2004, after 20 years in the kitchen at Chez Panisse, I moved back to our family farm in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains, where I’d spent all my summers growing up. I didn’t really understand the importance of those summers on the farm until I moved back.

Summers during my Youth

During the school year we lived in Los Angeles, but every June we would pack up the Studebaker and later—as our family expanded—the Chevy station wagon, and drive the 400 miles up Highway 99. When we stepped out of the car at my grandparents’ house, and I could smell the red earth and the tarweed, I always felt at home.

Things to Do on the Farm

It was a place where I never lacked anything, not food, nor companionship—and certainly not things to do.

  • Chores – My uncle and grandpa were in charge of the fruit orchards, the main occupation of the farm. But my grandma, mom and us kids took care of a lot of the rest. There were chickens to feed, eggs to collect, cattle to tend and weeds to hoe.
  • Planting – We planted a huge vegetable garden and spent much of the summer canning corn, beans, tomatoes and other things that would be needed for the winter.
  • Canning – The orchards provided mountains of cull fruit that we turned into gorgeous jars of applesauce, peaches, pears and apricots.

Sometimes, late in the afternoon when our chores were done, my older brother and I had time to hike down to the creek and try our luck catching the flashy and elusive rainbow trout.

Times in the Kitchen

The best times for me were in the kitchen, helping with the daily cooking, especially preparing the main meal, our midday dinner. I dutifully peeled potatoes, shucked corn and washed greens. But I really wanted to make desserts. Every once in a while my mom or grandma would take the time to teach me. Pies were my specialty. In the farm kitchen I learned to make first-rate pie dough, working quickly with a light touch and ice water to make sure it turned out tender and flaky. Lemon meringue was my masterpiece.

Somehow we never had to worry about healthy eating or whether we were getting our vitamins or enough exercise. The life of the farm took care of all that. When we went back to the city in the fall I would always ask my friends about their exotic trips to summer camp or family vacations. I never thought of our trip to the farm as a vacation; it was just part of everyday life.

The Call of DooF

My experience with food and togetherness taught me respect for the land and the people around me. And while most kids do not have a farm to come home to, by cooking with their families, and understanding that real, live people grow their food, they can discover practices and values to sustain them throughout their lives.

Shortly before I left Chez Panisse to move back to the farm, I heard about DooF. I couldn’t ignore the invitation to get involved. Food backwards, they said.

It seems more like food forward to me.