Ducks with Juice of Oranges

History

This recipe is printed as 'To dress ducks with juice of oranges' in Mary Randolph's The Virginia House-Wife: 'Take two ducks, pick and clean them nicely, make a forcemeat of the livers, bacon chopped, green onions, sweet herbs and parsley, mushrooms, and bread crumbs, fill the ducks with it, sew them up, cover them with slices of bacon and paper, roast them nicely; when done... strain the gravy from the pan, add to it the juice of two large oranges, a little salt and cayenne pepper, boil it a few minutes and pour it over'. The Virginia House-Wife was first published in 1824 and is considered the first regional American cookbook. Its recipes drew on many traditions, including British, Spanish ('gaspacho'), West Indian (gumbo), East Indian (curry), Scottish, and French (macarons). Randolph developed her cooking over the thirteen years she spent running a Richmond boardinghouse. The kitchen labor and culinary knowledge behind the book were substantially those of enslaved Black women, whose West African cooking traditions shaped the food though the book never credits them. The record does not document a specific origin, a court pedigree, or any class symbolism for this individual duck-and-orange recipe.

Ingredients

• ducks
• duck livers
• little bacon
• butter
• green onions
• sweet herbs
• parsley
• salt
• pepper
• mushrooms
• little gravy
• orange juice
• few shallots

Instructions

1. Singe, pick, and draw the ducks. Mince together the duck livers, scraped bacon, butter, green onions, sweet herbs, parsley, salt, pepper, and mushrooms. Stuff this mixture into the bodies of the ducks. Cover the ducks with slices of bacon and wrap them in paper.
2. Roast the prepared ducks. In a stew pan, combine a little gravy, the juice of an orange, minced shallots, and a pinch of pepper.
3. When the ducks are roasted, remove the bacon and paper. Dish the ducks and pour the orange sauce over them. Serve hot.