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National Peking Duck Day 2025
We’re sneaking up on 🧧🥮 Lunar New Year 🐍🧨, so what better time for National Peking Duck Day? 🍗 I’ve never had it, but I’m looking forward to correcting that oversight.
北京 🦆?
I grew up in Beijing and Beijing roast duck is my favorite. My mom makes it every year for Christmas Eve. How crispy the skin is is how good a duck restaurant is. ~Lulu Wang
So, it seems that those two Chinese language characters (北 and 京) actually mean “Northern Capital” whether pronounced in the archaic Wade-Giles system of transliteration as Peking or in the modern Pinyin system as Beijing. The typical pronunciation of this word in Mandarin has always been closer to Beijing regardless of the historical references to Peking.
That’s the thing about foreign languages. The people whose native language it is should probably be trusted to know how something is pronounced.
Chinese is so unlike English that it was nearly inevitable that the adventurers who sailed there back in the Age of Exploration would end up screwing up the pronunciations.
After all, that’s half of the mystery. It all sounds mysterious and exotic whether you pronounce it correctly or not. That was the nature of things before the age of communication.
It’s not that hard to get it right these days. We have immediate access to people virtually anywhere on the planet. Someone can show you the street signs right out their window and say, “I’m in Beijing.” or “I’m in Mumbai.” or “I’m in Rovaniemi”.
Actually, I’d like to be able to say I’m in Rovaniemi, because it looks like a great destination. Petting reindeer, Christmas shopping and frolicking with Finnish elves sounds like a marvelous time.
What does this have to do with 北京 🦆? Nothing really. It is my blog, after all. I can ramble as much as I want.
As I said already, I haven’t had it before. It would seem the closest restaurant that offers a decent dish of 北京 🦆 is in Philly’s Chinatown (while it still exists).
I don’t currently have the leisure to go to Philly for dinner, so that’s on the some day list.
Peking Duck At Home
How to roast Peking duck at home no professional tools needed 北京烤鴨在家做
Fortunately, the brilliant folks on YouTube have provided a DIY recipe. Will I try it? Maybe, some day.
There was no duck to be had at Redner’s today, so I made my own Chinese-inspired dinner. I included Duck Sauce in that experiment, so it will have to just be close enough.
Since I could not find duck at Redners, I have to assume it’s not duck season…
Rabbit season, duck season
🦆, 🦆, Goose
If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands. ~Douglas Adams
Not surprisingly, geese are also in family anatidae. They are water fowl and look a bit like long-necked mega-ducks.
There’s something to be said for things being what they look like. Sometimes a duck is simply a duck.
Sometimes it’s a red herring. You can zig while your metaphorical duck zags.
The great thing about mysteries is that you can throw a curveball, but if you subtly provide the clues of what’s actually going on, the reader will recognize what they should have seen when the sleuth reveals the truth during the all-hands reveal at the end of the story.
You can also do that outside of the mystery genre. Red herrings, misdirection, sleight of hand are all available in comedy, tragedy, sci-fi, romance or whatever you write.
If you don’t provide the clues, it comes across like deus ex machina and is very unsatisfying to the reader.
If you highlight the clues, it comes across like Children’s TV and is very unsatisfying to the reader.
If you hide the clues in plain sight, the breadcrumbs lead to a believable destination.
Having that pointed out is deeply satisfying because the sleight of hand is entertaining, but when the truth comes out, you see what really happened and the thread of truth underlying the hijinks.
That’s all for today. That’s one sumptuous dinner I still haven’t taken an opportunity to try, but we can look forward to a lovely dessert to follow it up with on Wednesday. See you then…