On a whim the other day I bought a whole duck to roast. The package is labeled “duckling” and I notice that many recipes use the word duckling in their titles.
Yet this ‘duckling’ weighs five and a half pounds and looks at least as big, if not bigger, than the mallards you would see paddling about on the nearest pond. How big do these ducks get? Are they really not fully grown when slaughtered and processed for sale?
I don’t know, but I do not that I never see mutton in the stores, only lamb. I’ve often wondered if “lamb” has an upper age limit, and if so, what it is.
…do **note ** that…
Take that sheep out of this thread, you’re frightening all my ducks.
It has to do with the age, not size, of the bird.
From here.
I can’t find the exact age cutoff, however. Even my Joy Of Cooking (newfangled edition) fails me.
The lambs, having received their answer, retreat (sheepishly) from the thread.
My cookbook (Good Housekeeping) says: “Commercial ducklings are killed at the second feather stage, at about 7–8 weeks.”
Obviously there may be differences between the UK and the US (and elsewhere).
Ah, the silence of the lambs.
Yeah, but how does the lotion on its skin affect the tenderness?
And become silent.
If you can buy duckling how come you can’t buy gosling?
So what would be the reason to butcher old ducks, at all? As long as they’re full-sized, the meat from the younger ones should be cheaper, since they don’t need to eat as much before they’re et. With sheep, there’s some economic sense, since you can continue getting wool from a sheep for its whole life, but I don’t think there’s any sort of continuing product from ducks.
Well, there’s other ducks.
There’s also a modest market for duck eggs in places with a significant Asian population.
Maybe they keep 'em around for egg-laying purposes, and then butcher them when they stop laying. I once bought for cooking a “duck” (not duckling), and used it for duck soup. Browned it in its own fat and simmered it for a couple of hours with red wine and garlic. Made good soup, but was in no way tender.
To answer your question, I repeat the anecdote of my dear friend Margretl, a German immigrant to the US. Margretl went to a Trader Joe’s (or some other hippified store) and asked for a duck to roast for dinner. Nothing was in the front case, but the eager, hopeful clerk went rummaging around in the back room for a bit, then came out, triumphant. “Here! I found one, and it’s a young lean male duckling!”
(For full effect, imagine this next part in German-accented English, with the Raised Eyebrow of Disdain that only my friend Margretl can do so well.)
“Stupid boy,” she said firmly, “Every bit of that was wrong. If I’m going to cook a duck, I want an old, fat female! I want to **taste **it, not punt it!”
(She went to Lincoln Square (Germantown) and got herself a “real” duck.)
Cold, even.
Or even goose?
Why can’t you get mutton in the U.S.? I ran a thread on that question but got no satisfactory answer: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=293673
Current USDA Definitions: