RECIPE FOR CAJUN WILD DUCK GUMBO

The following recipe is a variation on the gumbo I learned from my mother, Gloria (Leach) Clifford, who grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, where I was born.  She and my father moved to Houston when I was one, then to 100 acres in Fayette County, Texas, when I was in college.  In her eighties my mother moved to Tomball, near Houston, and spent the last eight years of her life there.

I grew up hunting ducks, geese, doves, and quail with my father.  I remember going with my dad to south Louisiana to hunt ducks with relatives. When I was in eighth grade and had a cast on my broken leg, we went with my Uncle Ludger on a boat out into the marsh to a houseboat set up as a hunting camp.  The engine crapped out halfway there, and I remember Uncle Ludger, a mechanic by profession, taking apart the carburetor and reassembling it in the middle of the marsh.  I couldn’t hunt with my leg in a cast, but I remember fondly the Coonass camaraderie.  If you accidentally killed a fish-eating spoonbill (called “smiling mallards” by the Cajuns), you had to wrap its bill in a five-dollar bill and donate it to the camp.

I quit hunting for years–college and graduate school and more intellectual pursuits intervened.  But when we moved back to Texas after nine years away, I started back hunting ducks with my dad.  In his retirement, duck hunting was damn near the center of his life.  Partly, as he explained, because he was too poor to own a shotgun when he was growing up.  My dad was an amazing shot.  Late in his life, he hunted ducks with a 20 gauge and doves with .410. Totally out of practice after years of abstinence, I was not a good shot.  So I remember my dad repeatedly saying (expletives deleted), “How could you miss that duck?”  I got better, but I was never in the same league with my dad. By the way, as a math and physics major and a math and physics high school teacher for a few years, my dad was interested in calculating how far to lead a bird on the wing to hit it.  He published an article about that in a journal about teaching math.  Of course, to be a good shot, it takes tons of experience and a gut instinct, but understanding the basic math helps.

After his retirement my dad would duck hunt several times a week during the season.  If I was visiting, I would go.  He would also take friends.  His duck lease was south of Halletsville in the rice country, near Vienna (pronounced Veye-enna) and Speaks, maybe an hour’s drive south of where he lived.  I remember getting up at four in the morning to drive down to the rice field and put out decoys.  If you want to know what that’s like, listen to Adam Carroll’s “Errol’s Song”:

My nephew Kyle, who got to hunt with my dad right before he died of lung cancer, played that song to me and said, “That’s exactly what it was like to hunt ducks with your dad.”  He was right.

So, to get back to the gumbo, every duck season my mom would freeze my dad’s ducks in half-gallon milk cartons filled with water.  At the end of the season, my mom and dad would invite over a bunch of friends for wild duck gumbo.  I think she made it in a four-gallon pot.  Her recipe was fairly simple and straightforward, and I don’t know who she learned it from, but it’s pure Coonass bliss.

My variation strays pretty far from hers.  And since I haven’t hunted in years, I haven’t made it in years.  Hint, hint–someone bring me some wild ducks . . .  And that’s essential–it has to be wild ducks.  You can buy domestic duck breasts at Central Market and other frou-frou places, and those are wonderful cooked properly.  But Cajun duck gumbo requires lean and mean wild ducks!  And often my mom would throw in a couple of wild geese, because even though my dad was hunting ducks, if a stray speckled-belly goose would come too close he became food.

So here’s the recipe:

The measurements, such as they are, are based on a batch of gumbo that ended up approximately 3 l/2 gallons.  I don’t really measure anything, but these are my best guesses for measurements.

Ingredients

Two medium-sized wild geese, two medium-large wild ducks, four or five teal, or the equivalent thereof  (plucked with the skin still on)

Three large Spanish onions

Three large green peppers

Four jalapeno peppers or other hot peppers, less if you don’t want it too spicy

Ten or so cloves of garlic

Seasoning (the amounts are pure guesses):

5 Tbsp.  sea salt

3 tsp. Cayenne pepper (more later if not hot enough)

10 Tbsp. cumino

8 Tbsp. Mexican oregano (less if Italian), and/or other suitable green herbs

3 Tbsp. ground coriander

2 Tbsp. allspice

10 Tbsp. medium-hot pure chili powder

4 Tbsp. smoked Spanish paprika

2 tsp. Tobasco, or to taste (more if not hot enough)

Four cups of flour, plus enough to dust duck and/or goose parts

Four cups olive oil (I think my mom used Crisco, and I’m guessing the traditional fat would have been lard.)

Several bunches green onions

Several bunches fresh parsley

Gumbo file

Rice

Instructions

l.  Chop the onions, peppers, and garlic.

2.  Cut up the ducks and/or geese into parts.  I discard the backs, because you end up with hundreds of little bones in the gumbo otherwise.  For geese, cut off legs and wings, and cut breasts into fourths.  For large ducks, cut breasts into halves or fourths. For teal, leave the breasts whole or cut into halves.  Dust the ducks in flour, salt, and pepper and brown well in separate skillet.

3.  Start heating water to add to the roux—don't add cold water to the roux or it will curdle.

4.  Make the roux.  In a heavy soup or chili pot, mix four cups of cold olive oil with four cups of white flour until smooth.  Heat over low to medium heat stirring the bottom of the pot fairly often so that no particles of flour stick to the bottom and burn (or over high heat stirring almost continuously).  As you stir, the roux browns slowly. For this amount, it usually takes me over an hour.  You can’t do it quickly.  The idea is to get it to a rich caramel brown without burning the flour, in which case you end up starting over.  When it turns a dark caramel brown and starts giving off smoke, it is about to burn.  Turn down the fire and stir in your chopped onions, garlic, and peppers to lower the heat. When the loud sizzling noises stop, turn the heat back up to medium-high and cook until the onions are transparent.

I’ve read about making roux in a microwave.  Also, about browning the flour in the oven first, then adding the fat.  It just doesn’t seem like gumbo to me unless I stand over it sweating my ass off and stirring forever . . .

5.  Add seasoning and boiling water (enough water to cover the duck and/or goose parts), bring to boil, and add the browned duck and/or goose parts.  If necessary, add more hot water to cover meat.  Simmer until the meat is tender (until it's just about to fall off the bones).  Add a few tablespoons of file during the last fifteen minutes (not earlier, and not more, or it will curdle).

6.  While the meat is cooking, cook rice.

7.  Serve gumbo over rice in a bowl.  Sprinkle with generous portions of file, chopped green onions, and chopped parsley. Add Tobasco if you want it spicier.