Duck Confit (Confit de Canard) Part I: Historical Perspective

When you are out to have a nice dinner with friends or family and somebody suggests French food, what is the first thing that comes to your mind? More than likely you are thinking of Gratin Dauphinois or Confit de Canard.

Contemporary views on global cuisine see Confit de Canard as one of the staples of French cuisine in the transnational world, where French inspired restaurants and bistros serve duck confit. But up until the twentieth century, confit was simply the traditional method of preparing poultry in southwestern France particularly in the region of Gascony dating back to at least two hundred years ago.

A Typical Landscape of Gascony

The contemporary notoriety of confit can be attributed to the fact that when one travels to Gascony, Languedoc or the French Riviera, duck confit is easily accessible. And because Confit de canard is a sophisticated, yet rustic dish that is rich in flavour making it one of the most popular French dishes. As a result confit has been articulated as one of the representative dishes of contemporary French cuisine.

It was not until the rise of French nationalism during the Enlightenment period, was there an expansion of French cuisine as gourmet on a transnational level, which is evident of the shops and restaurants found in Paris. Because, prior to the late eighteenth century the notion of French cuisine that embodied the French identity of sophistication and class did not exist. Following the abolishment of guilds, it gave way to the commodity of commercial foods through a wide market of consumerism and an array of shops that offered prepared foods ready for consumption in urban French areas.

So by the late eighteenth century Paris already had an extremely large and rich food offering in public food establishments, such as restaurants and Patisseries. As a result, Paris became known as a Mecca of food consumerism through its wealth of shops and restaurants.

References:

Schneider, Edward. “Of Goose in Gascony: The Making of Confit in Centuries Past.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, Vol. 2, No. 3
(Summer 2002): 49–58.

Jones, Olive R. “Commercial Foods, 1740-1820.” Historical Archaeology, Vol. 27, No. 2 (1993): 25–41.
Trubek, Amy B. Haute Cuisine: How the French invented the culinary profession. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000.
Image:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/feyte/6492447251/

Others in the Series:
Duck Confit Part II: Gascon Culinary Tradition (Recipe)
Duck Confit Part III: Easy & Fail Proof Confit