Duck Season: Eating, Drinking, and Other Misadventures in Gascony--France's Last Best Place - Paperback

by David McAninch (Author)

A delicious memoir about the eight months food writer David McAninch spent in Gascony--a deeply rural region of France virtually untouched by mass tourism--meeting extraordinary characters and eating the best meals of his life.

Though he'd been a card-carrying Francophile all of his life, David McAninch knew little about Gascony, an ancient region in Southwest France mostly overlooked by Americans. Then an assignment sent him to research a story on duck. After enjoying a string of rich meals--Armagnac-flambéed duck tenderloins; skewered duck hearts with chanterelles; a duck-confit shepherd's pie strewn with shavings of foie gras--he soon realized what he'd been missing.

McAninch decided he needed a more permanent fix. He'd fallen in love--not only with the food but with the people, and with the sheer unspoiled beauty of the place. So, along with his wife and young daughter, he moved to an old millhouse in the small village of Plaisance du Gers, where they would spend the next eight months living as Gascons. Duck Season is the delightful, mouthwatering chronicle of McAninch's time in this tradition-bound corner of France. There he herds sheep in the Pyrenees, harvests grapes, attends a pig slaughter, hunts for pigeons, distills Armagnac, and, of course, makes and eats all manner of delicious duck specialties--learning to rewire his own thinking about cooking, eating, drinking, and the art of living a full and happy life.

With wit and warmth, McAninch brings us deep into this enchanting world, where eating what makes you happy isn't a sin but a commandment and where, to the eternal surprise of outsiders, locals' life expectancy is higher than in any other region of France. Featuring a dozen choice recipes and beautiful line drawings, Duck Season is an irresistible treat for Francophiles and gourmands alike.

Front Jacket

In this smart, affectionate culinary memoir, food writer and lifelong Francophile David McAninch chronicles an eight-month epicurean journey in France's rural Southwest: the ancient Gallic cradle of foie gras, confit, and magret de canard, among other duck-centric delicacies. Intrigued by Gascony since traveling there on assignment for a cooking magazine, McAninch persuaded his wife and young daughter to move to an unprepossessing village in the Gers--Gascony's agricultural heartland--and attempt to live as the Gascons do.

McAninch sets out to master ultratraditional Gascon dishes, like wine-braised duck legs, poule au pot, garbure (a meaty peasant soup), and cured duck breast, and rustic yet exceedingly hard-to-pull-off desserts, including the formidable hearth-baked confection known as gâteau à la broche. He provisions his meals at the weekly market; imbibes the inky local wines; immerses himself in Gascony's history and folklore; and takes part, occasionally at the cost of his pride, in such local rites of passage as the pigeon hunt, the wine harvest, and the distillation of Armagnac. When McAninch succeeds in these endeavors--and even more so when he doesn't--he learns some unexpected things about his potential as a cook, and ultimately undergoes a fundamental rewiring in the way he thinks about food, wine, and life in general.

Beautifully illustrated with whimsical drawings and featuring a wonderful appendix of classic recipes, Duck Season is an irresistible invitation to embrace the pleasures of the table--guiltlessly and with gusto--joining such books as A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun in the canon of sensual, food-infused memoirs of European country life.

Back Jacket

In this smart, affectionate culinary memoir, food writer and lifelong Francophile David McAninch chronicles an eight-month epicurean journey in France's rural Southwest: the ancient Gallic cradle of foie gras, confit, and magret de canard, among other duck-centric delicacies. Intrigued by Gascony since traveling there on assignment for a cooking magazine, McAninch persuaded his wife and young daughter to move to an unprepossessing village in the Gers--Gascony's agricultural heartland--and attempt to live as the Gascons do.

McAninch sets out to master ultratraditional Gascon dishes, like wine-braised duck legs, poule au pot, garbure (a meaty peasant soup), and cured duck breast, and rustic yet exceedingly hard-to-pull-off desserts, including the formidable hearth-baked confection known as gâteau à la broche. He provisions his meals at the weekly market; imbibes the inky local wines; immerses himself in Gascony's history and folklore; and takes part, occasionally at the cost of his pride, in such local rites of passage as the pigeon hunt, the wine harvest, and the distillation of Armagnac. When McAninch succeeds in these endeavors--and even more so when he doesn't--he learns some unexpected things about his potential as a cook, and ultimately undergoes a fundamental rewiring in the way he thinks about food, wine, and life in general.

Beautifully illustrated with whimsical drawings and featuring a wonderful appendix of classic recipes, Duck Season is an irresistible invitation to embrace the pleasures of the table--guiltlessly and with gusto--joining such books as A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun in the canon of sensual, food-infused memoirs of European country life.