Duckling is a speciality of the Seine valley around Rouen. It was one of the stars of the famous ‘Dinner of the Three Emperors’ when it was prepared Rouen style, caneton à la rouennaise with a red wine sauce made from duck livers, blood and juices from a duck carcass, squeezed in a duck press, invented by a man named Machenet in Paris in the early 1800s.
It’s still the speciality at La Tour d’Argent in Paris.
Other names for the dish are canard au sang or caneton Tour d'Argent while the Michelin-starred Le Pressoir d’Argent in Bordeaux is named after one of the very few silver duck presses still in use.
Images by Edsel Little, julie corsi