In China, I'm quickly learning that you can immediately tell what a city's most iconic dishes are by simply browsing through the gift shops at the train station. There's always vacuumed-sealed food packaged neatly in a box, ready to be taken home and eaten immediately. In Hangzhou, it was Longjing green tea cakes. In Wuxi, it was the pork spare ribs and meatballs.In Nanjing, it's all things duck. Whatever part you're looking for, you can find it pre-cooked and sealed in a bag: duck gizzard, roasted duck, cured duck, duck blood, salted duck. Nanjing has it all.
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Located in the Jiangsu Province, Nanjing used to be the imperial capital of China. Emperors had considered duck a superior type of poultry, and the tradition of eating duck quickly spread from royal courts to the layman.Today, Nanjing is still China's capital of duck—much more so than its northern counterpart, Beijing. While Beijing roasted duck is a luxurious dish reserved for special occasions, in Nanjing, duck is an everyday affair. It appears everywhere from the street food stands to bougie banquet halls. It is estimated that the city itself goes through 200 million ducks a year.
There's a local saying in Nanjing: Wu ya bu cheng xi. The meaning: "Without duck, there is no feast."Here are all the duck dishes I documented in Nanjing:
Nanjing Salted Duck (盐水鸭)
Jinling Roasted Duck (金陵烤鸭)
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Duck Blood (鸭血)
Duck Gizzard (鸭肫)
Duck Roll (鸭卷)
Duck-Wrapped Duck Egg (鸭包皮蛋)
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