Ya got yer butter, lard, ghee, shortening … then along comes “duck fat” like an unloved stepchild with no endearing nickname. It squats in the middle of fancy menus with their frou-frou descriptions, bereft of any Francophile flourishes.
Yes, yes, I realize duck just doesn’t have the same importance to the American table, which is why the meat doesn’t have a special name the way beef, mutton and veal does.
Well, Dopers, we got some spare time, right? Let’s remedy this tragic situation!
“Graisse de canard.”
I’m fairly sure those words entered the English language about 700 years before America was a thing.
Duck meat is “Viande de canard.”
“Adorable bird murder goo.”
We should have just stuck with Rind-, Schaf-, and Kalbfleisch.
Wiktionary accepts ‘schmalz’ as English (cf. Gänseschmalz, Entenschmalz). That’s not very French but neither is a word like ‘shortening’. Or just stick with graisse de canard, saindoux, … on your menu that for some reason cannot be in English (so ghee should still be OK since it’s called that in French as well as Hindi and so on)
Neither are ghee (Sanskrit) or butter (plain ol’ English). The only French word there is lard.
Daffy Taffy
It doesn’t have to be chicken fat, though, does it? The OED has
1951: L. W. Leonard Jewish Cookery vi. 42 (heading) “Rendering chicken or goose fat (schmaltz).”
A Yiddish word that actually refers to rendered poultry skin of all kinds (goose, chicken or duck), schmaltz is a staple ingredient for matzo ball soup, chopped liver and latkes.
I’m pretty sure that article is wrong.
Is the rendered skin - Schmaltz is what it is cooked in.
The Times makes that distinction earlier in the article:
When it’s properly made, schmaltz has a brawny, roasted character that comes from the bits of poultry skin that brown in the pan. (Those crunchy, golden fried pieces of skin are called gribenes, and they are an addictive snack in their own right.)
Some cooks brown onions in the fat as it renders, which adds a layer of honeyed sweetness.
Yeah, it could have used some editing to be less confusing.
For those who have never had them, Gribenes are perhaps the most addicting food ever invented. Properly made, they are almost supernaturally delicious.
Duck Butter.
Udderly ducky?
In the UK they call it Daffy. As in Daffy Chips (fries).
I’m sure I’d like Gribenes, as when I was a child when we had whole pieces of chicken for dinner, I would refuse to eat anything but the skin and any portion of the meat that happened to come along with it.