My Dad and I were on a week long grouse hunt w/ our setter, but on this rainy day we just drove around looking for some opportunities to locate some game.
We stopped at a recently built beaver dam water backup and heard a lot of mallards quacking in the flooded alders. Went in and waited and waited for some mallards to take off....preferably over us. Well, nothing happened for a couple of hours, so I went by my Dad and told him "to get ready" because on my return to my spot I'd fire a shot and hopefully the mallards would fly over one of us. Well...only one mallard came over only me and I shot it.
Couldn't find the duck so went into the very cold water barefoot and after a few minutes, gave up. Shortly my Dad came over and found the mallard on dry land. When it hit the ground, corn kernels were forced out. Corn fed mallard only heightened my expectations of the evening meal.
Now mallards are the "elite" of the ducks and seeing my Dad was a gourmet cook having been associated w/ various restaurants and also cooking in my Mother's restaurant, I was confident in his abilities to cook a "mallard feast".
The slightly rare cooked mallard stuffed w/ orange slices and mushroons was put on the table and my Dad cut it up and when the veggies of buttered asparagus seasoned w/ tarragon and buttered potatoes w/ basil were on the plate, then the "piece de resistance" of roast mallard completed the plating.
Of course the first bite was that of the mallard and after a few chews, my Dad and I looked at each other in utter dismay....what we had in our mouths tasted awful and was quickly expelled.
The remainder of the meal sufficed for that evening, but we hadn't yet fed our setter Spot. We presented the cut up mallard to Spot, he sniffed it and to our surprise, lifted his lag and urinated on it. His reaction re-inforced our opinion as to how the mallard tasted.
This is a true story and henceforth my Dad and I only ate domestic Muscovy ducks which are what we expected that mallard to taste like......Fred
We stopped at a recently built beaver dam water backup and heard a lot of mallards quacking in the flooded alders. Went in and waited and waited for some mallards to take off....preferably over us. Well, nothing happened for a couple of hours, so I went by my Dad and told him "to get ready" because on my return to my spot I'd fire a shot and hopefully the mallards would fly over one of us. Well...only one mallard came over only me and I shot it.
Couldn't find the duck so went into the very cold water barefoot and after a few minutes, gave up. Shortly my Dad came over and found the mallard on dry land. When it hit the ground, corn kernels were forced out. Corn fed mallard only heightened my expectations of the evening meal.
Now mallards are the "elite" of the ducks and seeing my Dad was a gourmet cook having been associated w/ various restaurants and also cooking in my Mother's restaurant, I was confident in his abilities to cook a "mallard feast".
The slightly rare cooked mallard stuffed w/ orange slices and mushroons was put on the table and my Dad cut it up and when the veggies of buttered asparagus seasoned w/ tarragon and buttered potatoes w/ basil were on the plate, then the "piece de resistance" of roast mallard completed the plating.
Of course the first bite was that of the mallard and after a few chews, my Dad and I looked at each other in utter dismay....what we had in our mouths tasted awful and was quickly expelled.
The remainder of the meal sufficed for that evening, but we hadn't yet fed our setter Spot. We presented the cut up mallard to Spot, he sniffed it and to our surprise, lifted his lag and urinated on it. His reaction re-inforced our opinion as to how the mallard tasted.
This is a true story and henceforth my Dad and I only ate domestic Muscovy ducks which are what we expected that mallard to taste like......Fred
