It's located in the downtown Beijing branch of the restaurant chain Quanjude, which has been serving roast duck since 1864. (Not too shabby!) Among the 500 items on display are a coupon³（赠券） from a 1901 duck sale and photographs of Mao Zedong chowing down（大快朵颐）.

 

Peking duck ranks high among the Chinese dishes that have made the trek⁴（艰苦跋涉） Westward⁵, but there's a lot to it that you may not know. We asked Ed Schoenfeld, the co-owner of Decoy, a Peking duck-themed restaurant that opened this past spring in New York City, to help us fill in the gaps.

 

How It's Made: Peking duck takes several days to prepare. First, fatty birds bred specifically for the dish are pumped with air to separate the skin from its meat. This insures that the "skin [is] very crispy and the meat succulent," said Schoenfeld. They're then scalded with boiling water, painted with a sweet mixture of maltose and water, and hung inside a 500-degree oven for up to 75 minutes. Only then are the ducks artfully sliced and trimmed of excess fat.

 

What the Name Means: The dish takes its name from a now out-of-favor transliteration of "Beijing." In English, the dish is often called "Beijing duck" or simply "roast duck."

 

Where It Comes From: The first Peking duck was roasted some time during the early 15th century, when it was a popular dish on imperial court menus of the Ming Dynasty. During this era, "the really great chefs didn't really work in restaurants," Schoenfeld said. "They worked for patrons, much in the same way as a painter or a composer had a patron in court in Renaissance⁶ Europe." These chefs helped define imperial cuisine⁷, which in turn influenced the cuisine of the entire country.

 

How It's Eaten: A Peking duck is often sliced tableside and served alongside cucumbers and scallions. The components⁸ are wrapped in a thin flour pancake, which is slathered with any of several savory⁹ sauces.

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