Duck Carnitas at Cacao Mexicatessen ~ Eagle Rock

Here is the topic for today's discussion: Why isn't duck carnitas on every Mexican menu in town? Because if you think about it, the dish is almost inevitable — duck meat simmered in fat until it nearly collapses, perfumed flesh arranged atop crisply fried sopes, a shotgun marriage of traditional and European cooking techniques of the sort that have been going on in Mexico since the conquest. If life were fair, you would be able to get duck carnitas from every respectable taco truck on the Eastside.

Carnitas, of course, is made from pork shoulder boiled slowly in its own lard until it is difficult to discern the medium from the product being cooked, and the magnetic pull of the giant copper kettles traditionally used to prepare the dish sometimes seems sufficient to pull the whole of the Earth toward Michoacan. Duck confit, its equivalent from Southwest France, involves salted duck legs cooked in their own fat for many hours until they, too, achieve concentrated flavor and extreme succulence.