Raisins, Part III

So, raisin names.  What's in a name?  That which we call a raisin by any other name would taste as sweet.  Let's start by going back to the bit about sultanas.

Sultana, Sultana, wherefore art thou Sultana?  ("wherefore" meaning "why," of course*).  Turns out that the name sultana, which can refer to either the grape or the raisin made from said grape, has origins in the Ottoman empire.  The grapes were supposedly favored by Sultans and were subsequently given a name of distinction.

Because of the early usage of "sultana," it's no wonder that much of the world still uses the name in addition to, or even instead of, the term "raisin."  For example, head down under and you'll find sultanas to be the mainstay of everyone's favorite Kellogg's cereal:

Sultana Bran!  Complete with awkward advertising campaign!

So if "Sultana" is so prevalent, where did the term raisin come from?  Seems that, amongst other roots, it's taken from the Latin racimus, meaning a cluster of grapes or berries.  But raisin, on it's own, can be vague in the U.S.  It's perfectly acceptable to call raisins sultanas in order to differentiate them from two other popular raisins: the red flame and the Zante currant.

The red flame raisin is simple to explain.  This is a raisin made from red flame grapes.  Adding sulfites to these won't create golden raisins because the grapes are dark to begin with; there is no color to preserve.

Zante Currants are typically just known as Currants.  That name is all fine and dandy in the U.S., where we don’t know much about red, black, or white currants.  However, the rest of the world is more culturally aware of the currant variety currently available, and so the name Zante is used to distinguish the fourth “currant.”

Zante Currants are really just small raisins derived from small grapes.  The grapes used for currants are sometimes known as “champagne grapes.”  This name is a bit dubious, however, because these grapes are never used to make champagne.  The name probably just refers to the grapes ability to explode out of a glass bottle when pointed at your face... or maybe just the similarity between the small grape and the fine carbonation of champagne.  Either way.

The word "currant" is derived from the root "Corinth."  This refers to the Black Corinth grape, originally hailing from Corinth, Greece.  "Currant" became used to refer to other types of similar small berries, which is why red, white, and black currants share the name.

(Incidentally, blackcurrant, also known by the French cassis, is my favorite fruit flavor ever.  It's a rare find in the U.S., because blackcurrant plants can harbor diseases that would destroy certain indigenous American trees.  It's too bad, really, because I hate having to pay an arm and a leg just for a bottle of Ribena squash.)

I had intended to conclude the raisin trilogy sooner by presenting a recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies.  However, I have yet to be satisfied with the recipe I've been tinkering with, so this shall have to wait.  Until then, thanks for reading!


*It's true.  Juliet's not asking where Romeo is, but why he is named Romeo.  The balcony scene context supports this, as well as other instances of the term "wherefore" throughout the play.  But this is not a blog on textual analysis ;)

Raisins, Part II

So what happens to a grape deferred?  Does it dry up, like a raisin in the sun?

Usually.  Why usually?  Because if you just let a grape sit there, it will more likely mold before anything else.  Mold spores and natural yeasts (hence wine) love grapes, but only when there is sufficient moisture for growth to happen.  If the grape dries out quickly enough, it won't rot because there is not enough moisture to support the food baddies.

Incidentally, this is why things like the 12 year old hamburger exist.  They remain preserved because they are too dry to "go bad," not because McDonald's is an evil mutant hamburger machine.  In fact, the instructions for creating your own self preserving burger specifically say that "The moisture needs to escape the food naturally."  Obviously.  This is after they claim that the burger needs to be obtained from "any place that serves hybridized, chemicalized, genetically altered, hormone/ pesticide-laden food."  This simply reveals their bias against cheap fast food; they have no conclusive evidence that the supposed chemicals inherent in the burger keep them from degrading.

Here's a thought: go get some organic burger buns and organic ground beef.  Prepare a burger with near identical properties to the McD's hamburger, and let it sit out.  I'd put good money on the homemade burger "self preserving" in the same way as the "pesticide-laden" burger.

/Rant.

I apologize for that, but I think you'll find this a bit more interesting: homemade raisins without the use of a food dehydrator or warm sun (which currently doesn't exist in Portland).

Experiment One:

An experiment was carried out to determine the possibility of making grapes by means other than air drying.  Two hygroscopic substrates were used, salt and sugar, to draw the water out the grapes and transform them into raisins.  Twelve Thompson seedless grapes were used, half of them peeled and half of them left whole.  Of these, three peeled grapes were placed into a bowl with 150g sugar, three into 150g salt, three unpeeled into 150g sugar, three unpeeled into 150g salt.

The goal is to get these grapes to turn to raisins through hygroscopically induced osmosis.  The hypothesis is that the peeled grapes in salt will reach this stage first, while the unpeeled grapes in sugar will take the longest.

Let’s define some things.  First of all, what’s this hygroscopic thing all about?  Hygroscopic simply refers to a compound’s tendency to absorb water.  If you’ve ever dumped sugar onto a bowl of strawberries, you’ll know that, after 30 minutes or so, you’ll have limp strawberries floating in delicious syrup.  This is because the sugar has drawn juices out of the strawberries and then dissolved to form a syrup.

Salt does the same thing, but to a greater degree, which is why salt was also used in the experiment.  (And remember our friend lye?  Good ol’ sodium hydroxide is so hygroscopic that it takes moisture straight out of the air around it!)  There is probably some sort of scale to measure hygroscopic tendencies, but I haven’t been able to find it.  Typically, one would just say that compound X can hold up to Y % of its weight in moisture.

Also, osmosis.  Who can tell me about osmosis?  You may need to reach back to ninth grade biology on this one.  Yes, you in the back!

“Wasn’t that a lame cartoon starring Will Smith?”

No.  You are wrong.  (It was Chris Rock, anyway.)

Osmosis has to do with semi-permeable membranes.  When you’ve got two solutions on each side of the membrane, and the solvent (usually water) passes through the membrane from the side of lower concentration to the side of higher concentration.  This happens to equalize the concentration on both sides of the membrane.  This is why you get prune fingers in the bath, and why brining a turkey for Thanksgiving is awesome.

Going back to the grapes, grape skins don’t seem very permeable, which is why some grapes were peeled.  The idea is that, inside a grape, you’ve got water and some sugars.  This forms a solution.  If you place the grape in something hygroscopic, it begins to attract water, from the solution, through the membrane.  A super saturated solution is formed outside the grape, and so more water begins to flow through the membrane to balance the solutions.  The grape’s internal solution begins to concentrate, making it taste sweeter.  The structure begins to collapse, making it small and wrinkled.  A raisin is formed!

This type of raisin is not exactly sun dried, like the famous California raisin brand, nor is it air dried, like many other brands.  It would be more accurate to call this a “cured” raisin!  Pretty neat, eh?

Anyway, observations from the experiment:

Beginning grape weights ranged from 3g to 7g, with the average being 4.75g.

Grapes were placed in 150g sugar or salt.

After 24 hours, the salt and sugar in the peeled grape bowls had solidified.  The assumption here is that sufficient water had been drawn out (and equalized throughout the entire volume of sugar / salt) to cause a very slight amount of dissolution and bonding of the individual granules.  Neat!

Here is a picture of the bowl of sugar.  You can see the sugar collapsing over the grapes due to this dissolution.

After chipping away at the sugar and salt, I removed the grapes for visual observations.  You can see that the unpeeled grapes show no visible change, nor did they show any change in weight.  However, the peeled grapes are visibly smaller, and now all average 2g each.

 A responsible scientist would take down observations like these at systematic intervals, but this experiment was conducted by a slightly irresponsible layman who chose not to check the grapes again until seven days after the initial burying.

But after one week, the peeled grapes had turned to raisins!  They weighed in at 2g total for both batches, so no more than .66g each, indicating a roughly 4g water loss!

The unpeeled grapes were left in for two weeks, after which they weighed in at an average of 1.33g each.  They were much more plump, but, unfortunately, also moldy.  They did not dry quickly enough to prevent mold from forming.  Sad :(

So there you have it: homemade raisins!  I’d recommend the sugar cured method, as salty grapes are weird.  You could rinse them a few times, like with salt cured capers, but still.  Blech.

Any questions?  Stay tuned, I’ve got more raisin rambling up my sleeve!

Raisins, Part I

The more you ignore them, the drier they get.

Raisins.

Sweet, plump, and wrinkled, just how I like my wo--  Um, that is to say…

Raisins.

Sweet, plump, and wrinkled, raisins have been touted as nature’s candy for millennia.  They can be found in sweet applications, such as scones and cookies, or savory applications, such as pilafs and tagines.  As long as people have been leaving grapes out in the sun to shrivel, they have been finding delicious uses for the end result.

But what exactly is a raisin? 

One could ask the same thing about water.  What exactly is water?

We just don’t know.

What we do know is that, in the U.S., we are most familiar with two types of raisins: the brown ones, and the not brown ones.  One might assume that the brown raisins began their unsuspecting lives and red grapes, whilst the not brown raisins (for sake of simplicity, we shall henceforth refer to them as “golden” raisins) began as green grapes.  This would be a foolish assumption, based solely on ignorance, and is therefore unacceptable.  In a moment, we will come to the true origin of these raisin brothers from other mothers.

Let us first, however, bring another raisin name into play: the Sultana.  This is a term not widely used in the U.S., found mostly in Commonwealth nations as a strange remnant of British Imperialism.  When asked about the difference between Sultanas and raisins, a dear friend of mine from the motherland explained that “sultanas come from green grapes and raisins come from red grapes.”  Taking this explanation at face value would lead to the conclusion that “Sultana” is simply a different, some would say “more correct,” name for the golden raisin.  However, this conclusion, as well as the explanation about Sultanic origin, is grievously false.

As it turns out, raisins, golden raisins, and Sultanas are all the withered descendants of just one grape: good old Thompson Seedless.  Thompsons are green grapes no matter which way you look at them, and rarely as sweet as a raisin.  Bearing this in mind, the path from one grape to a triune raisinhood may be a difficult route to understand, but the reward is a head full of useless trivia and a fist full of dried fruit.

As a grape dries, a few things happen.  Primarily, it loses the mass and volume that the bit of moisture provided.  This affects not just the physical properties of the raisin, but the resulting flavor.

Raisins are sweeter than grapes because the proportion of sugar to moisture is much higher.  A teaspoon of sugar mixed with a teaspoon of water will taste sweeter than a teaspoon of sugar in a cup of water.  By this example, a raisin may be thought of as a concentrated grape.

A secondary effect of the drying process is that the grape undergoes oxidation.  This is the same process that causes things such as apples, avocados, potatoes and tea leaves to darken.  And so a green grape, dried and oxidized, becomes a brown raisin.

A "golden raisin" is simply a green grape that has been treated with sulfur dioxide, an anti-oxidant, to preserve its color.  Sulfur dioxide may sound nasty, but it is used in many dried fruits to retain color.  Think of dried apricots, for instance, or even sun dried tomatoes.  You can get sulfur free versions of both of these, but they will be brownish due to oxidation.

Some would say that oxidation affects the flavor of the fruit, those this could be disputed.  Certainly the raisin companies will say that a golden raisin has a different flavor profile than a brown raisin, but that may just be an excuse to double their product line.

So what's this "sultana" thing all about?  We shall come to this in due course, but first, join me in a few days for some raisin science.  Raiscience!

Some Cakes are Figgier than Others, Part Two

Figs!  Yes, they are creepy; yes, they are delicious.

Since a fig is not exactly a fruit, it tastes not exactly like a fruit.  Fruit flavors certainly cover a wide spectrum, but they usually contain sweet flavors and some type of acidic flavor (some stronger than others).  Figs are one of those flavors that is hard to pin down.  They're sweet, but not too sweet.  They've got no hint of acidic tartness.  The flavor is very... floral.  Fitting, no?

Now of course there are different varieties of figs to be eaten.  The ones we are probably most familiar with are the black mission figs.  Mission figs are probably the sweetest figs out there, in an almost too much kind of way.  Their texture is not my favorite; sort of syrupy and mushy and gyuh gyuh gyuh as you try to swallow.   Then there are the other dark figs, brown turkish figs.  These guys are sweet like the black missions, but not so cloying, and the texture is a little bit more substantial.

Then there are a few green figs.  Even though their skin is green, their insides are still rosy red, which makes a great color contrast.  My favorite light skinned figs are kadotas. These are a delight; they taste like honey itself, and when straight off the tree are filled with a refreshing nectar.  Yumm!

Let's talk recipes. I really wanted to find a great baking recipe that utilized fresh figs, but those are hard to come by.  Most fig breads or cakes call for chopped dried figs, used like raisins.  This is great and all, but I want a fresh fig recipe!  Three cliche fresh fig recipes sprang to mind: grilled figs, grilled figs wrapped in prosciutto, and figs simmered in port (and then possibly grilled and wrapped in prosciutto).  Lame.  These are overdone, people.  Come up with something new.

That's exactly what I did!  I made up a recipe.  This particular recipe may not be super original, but i didn't get it from anywhere, so it's original for me.

I give you: honey lemon fig cake!

It utilizes fresh fig puree as a main ingredient (similar to how banana bread uses banana puree).  It's also got honey, which complements the flavor of figs, and lemon juice / zest, which offset the sweetness.  I'm also throwing in some yogurt, for flavor and softness in the cake.  Also, the combo of honey, lemon, figs, and yogurt sounded exotic to me.  A bit mediterranean maybe?  I don't know, but I like to think of this cake as paying tribute to the figs of yesteryear.

Speaking of paying tribute to things, this recipe pays tribute to the Summer with those flavors, and adds a hit of nutmeg to ring in the fall.  Perfect, because today is the first day of Fall!

Wait, are figs still in season?  Some of them, yes.  Kadota figs are a late season fig, beginning in mid August or so and lasting until mid October, if you're lucky.  I was still able to find some mission (left) and turkey figs (right), too, so they're still around.  Just as figs overlap the seasons, this cake recipe does the same thing!

I used these figs for the puree.  The kadota figs featured in the previous post were all eaten fresh :D

The Recipe:

Liquids:
Honey -- 4oz
Yogurt -- 8 oz (I used full fat, but not the Greek kind.  You want more liquid than that will offer.)
Veg Oil -- 4 oz
Eggs -- 2 ea
Vanilla Extract -- a little bit
Zest of two lemons
Juice of one lemon
Pureed Figs -- 12 oz  (Just take the stems off, dump the whole figs in a food processor, and let 'er go)

Fig Puree!  Everyone needs a Cuisinart.

Lemon zest!  Everyone needs a Microplane.


Dries:
AP Flour -- 12 oz (really, pastry or even cake flour might be better.  I only had AP.  Cakes came out more like muffins.)
Baking Powder -- 1.25 tsp
Baking Soda -- .25 tsp
Salt -- 1 tsp
Nutmeg -- .5 tsp


Procedure:  Super simple.  Ready?  Whisk all your liquids together, ending with the fig puree.  Sift or whisk all your dries together.  Fold dry into liquid.  Portion out, I used a Wilton mini-bundt pan with enough left over for a thin 6" layer.  Bake at 350f for 18ish minutes.



Done!  I also made a glaze with lemon juice and powdered sugar, but I forgot to take picture until the day after they were fresh, so the glaze just got absorbed into the cake  :[

Conculsions:  They're pretty good, but I may have discovered why dried figs are usually used in baking: the delicate flavor of fresh figs is easily lost during the baking process.  The flavor is still there, but more as a backdrop.  If anything, the rosy fig color is more apparent than the flavor.

This recipe could use some tweaking, I'm aware of that.  But figs are expensive, and I won't be able to make it again until next fig season rolls around.  But you can bet I will :]

Some Cakes are Figgier than Others, Part One

Part One being the nerdy info post.  Part two will contain culinary info and a recipe!  Also, I'm just going to throw this out there: there's a lot of smut in this post; there was really no way around it.

I've been wanting to write about figs for a while now.  In fact, this post was set to go up about a week ago, when my friend put an article on my wall that basically said everything I was hoping to say.  Bah!  It seems I'm not the only person in the world.  After coming up with a recipe to add to this post to make everything a bit more original, here we are.

But first thing's first.  Why was I planning to write about figs?  Simply because I am pretty fascinated by them.  Figs have a lot of interesting secrets, ones that I try to tell people (but they never believe me!).

Let's start off with an easy one:  Figs are not (technically) a fruit.  Think about this: every fruit tree goes into blossom before it bears fruit, right?  Well, go check out a fig tree next time summer rolls around and wait for the blossoms.

There are none!
That's because the blossoms are the figs!

It's true.  If you open up a fig, you'll see all these soft threads and things.  These are the bits that make up the blossom, essentially.  They're like the fig equivalent of a flower's pistel and stamen, depending on whether or not you've got a male fig or a female fig.  You'll see seeds in there, too, which are part of the technical fruits of the fig, but the big plump thing you eat is more like an inside out flower.  Neat, huh?

So let's talk about flowers and plant sex for a bit.  Plants reproduce when a mommy flower and a daddy flower fall in love and pollen goes from one of them to the other (I'm not sure which one, I forget how that whole thing works).  In nature, flowers are often pollinated by insects, such as bees.  Happy Bee Child walks around on the flower, because this is a nice thing for a Happy Bee to do, and unknowingly gets covered in pollen.  You know the rest.  Bee visits flower #2 and carries on the plant's dirty hedonistic business.

So if a fig is an inside out flower, and the flowery reproductive bits are on the inside, how does this pollination happen?  This is the fun part.  Don't let it gross you out, it's just nature, folks.

There's an insect called a fig wasp.  It doesn't really look like a scary bitey type wasp.  It's much smaller and probably doesn't bite.  Let's say there's a female fig wasp flying around looking for a safe place to lay its cache of eggs.  (I'm not sure where the pregnant wasp came from; it's a chicken / egg situation.)  Luckily for Ms. Wasp ("Ms.", because she's on her own but doesn't need the world to know), there is a ficus tree that needs her.  This tree has a plump little pocket of nectar with a hole on the bottom.  The hole is big enough for Ms. Wasp to crawl into, where she'll find a moist, sheltered environment for her eggs.  But alas!  Crawling through the tiny hole has ripped off her wings!  She will die inside the nectar pocket and get digested by its juices, but not before she gets a chance to lay her eggs.

So the eggs hatch, poppin' out male and female wasps.  The baby wasps are quick to get busy with their own reproductive business ("Life is short, can't waste time with all this dating nonsense."  Heathens!).  All that rolling around inside their home means some pollen is going to shake loose.  After they're done doing their thing, the females escape, with buns in the oven and pollen on their wet, naked insect bodies, only to seek out another nectar pocket.  Then they all go dancing till it all starts over again.  Right?  Something like that.

Here's the point: those nectar pockets are figs.  The things human kind have been eating for millenia.  Tree sex organs and combination wasp love nest and sarcophagus, all rolled into one.  The essence of the fig is one madcap romp through Mother Nature's blatantly excessive fecundity.

Now, I don't think there's any guarantee that this happens with every single fig you ever come across, but it certainly happens with enough frequency that any fig lover has most likely eaten one of these red light figs. 

I enjoy telling people this because I get a real kick out of it.  Symbiosis is fascinating, but most people would rather disbelieve or get sick, or both.  Until recently, I only had a Wikipedia article to back me up, and it's so easy for people to disregard Wikipedia when they disagree with it.

But!  Sweet vindication, I was at Powell's the other day reading through the summer issue of Gastronomica.  This is a quarterly journal of food and culture, published by the UC Press in Berkely, CA.  This is legit stuff, not some lame magazine with the top 63 summer grilling recipes.  Anyway, the summer issue had an article written by Gary Paul Nabhan titled "A Fig by Any Other Name."  It was very interesting, mainly comparing and contrasting figs and prickly pears, both of which have been historically and culturally important throughout humanity's life.  (Side note, the prickly pear was sometimes called an "Indian Fig").  He doesn't mention this part, but many cultures hold figs as a symbol of female fertility.  I'm not sure where they get that from.

Nabhan does mention, however, that one of the differences between the two is the whole false fruit thing, and the whole waspy sex thing!  Which is what I was trying to tell people!  And furthermore, here are some great links about the same issues to back me up!  They pretty much say the same thing, albeit much more concisely than my midnite banter will allow.  (Bonus, the first link has PBS videos!!)

Oscillator: Edible Symbiosis
The Kitchn: Strange Symbiosis

Humorous anecdote: I shared some figs and fig knowledge with a friend recently, saving the wasp bit till last, as is my custom (because would you eat a fig if someone told you about that first?).  She looked at me with a shock.  "You mean there were eggs inside here?"  "Well, there may have been.  Or maybe shells."  Still more shock.  that's when it occurred to me: my friend is vegan.  I felt horrible.  She shrugged it off and ate the rest of the fig anyway.  Oops!

Invader Puff

In the midst of my latest attempt at conquering earth, I was interrupted by screams from the courtyard:

--"We're having a potluck!  Everyone's making food!  You're going to make eclairs!"

"Filthy human worm babies!!  You dare insult my genius with such an impudent request as eclairs?!  The very concept that a superior baking race would participate in a... "pot luck" is sheer fantasy!  I will rule you all with an iron fist!"

--"Make a really huge eclair!  Like the size of the sheet pan!"

"YOU!  Obey the fist!"

"I want tacos!"

"Silence!"

"Tacos Tacos Tacos!!"

"Enough of this foolishness!  We will cater to their whims, and provide them with delicious treats the likes of which they have never knoooown!  They will live to regret this daaay!!"

"You gonna make biscuits? You gonna make biscuits? Youuu gonna make biiiscuits??"

"No.  I never want you to mention biscuits ever again.  We will make...  PROFITEROLES!"

"Isn't that really just a bite sized eclair?  Won't you still just be making eclairs like they asked?"

"Insolent cur!  You will not question my plans for Earth's Destruction!  Quickly now, gather these ingredients:"

Pâte à Choux:

• 4 oz Dihydrogen Monoxide
• 4 oz Bovine Mammary Extract
• 4 oz Solid emulsified BME fat
• 1 oz Crystalline Sucrose
  
• Pinch of Sodium Chloride
• Several drops of Soluble Green Tincture
• 6 oz Pulverised Triticum aestivum seed, sifted to remove bran
• 4 whole Gallus gallus domesticus ovae, unfertilised!!

1. Bring first six ingredients to full rolling boil!
2. Add full amount of T. aestivum.  Stir over high heat as if your miserable life depended on it!  It does!!
3. Remove from heat once the Sticky Skin Substance begins to form on the bottom of the pot.  Let it cool for a few minutes.
4. Beat in the G. gallus ovae, ONE AT A TIME!!
5. Pipe into bite sized circles.  Bake at 491 K for 15 minutes.  Then lower temperature to 463 K and continue to bake until dry, at least another 15 minutes.
6. Fill with Delicious Delicious Cream Filling!
7. Dip in prepared sauce derived from Theobroma cacao seeds!

 Delicious Delicious Cream Filling:

• 16 oz BME
• 1 Whole G. gallus ova, plus 2 yolks
• 1 oz Pulverised Zea mays Starch
• 4 oz Crystalline Sucrose
• .25 oz Vanilla planifolia extractive
• 1 oz BME fat
• Several drops Soluble Purple Tincture

"I was the turkey all along!  It was ME!!"

"Focus!  To make the filling:"

1.  Heat BME.  Meanwhile, combine ovae with Sucrose and starch.
2. Just before BME boils, gradually pour into eggy mixture, whisking constantly!
3. Return to heat.  Whisk over high heat as if your miserable life depended on it!  It does!!
4. Once thickened and bubbling, remove from heat.  Add remaining ingredients.  Cover and let cool.  Once cool, a pudding skin will have developed.  EAT THE SKIN!

"I'm gonna sing the dessert song now!"

"What follows will serve as visual documentation of this process: front row seats to the END of all MANKIND!!"

"I love this show!"

"Now to unleash Screaming Temporal DOOM!!"

"yay!  doom, doom doom doom dooooom, doomy doomy doom, doomy doooom!  The end!"

---

Today's post has been brought to you by the letters I, Z, and G.

Sizzling Blood and the Unholy Stench...

...Of Murder.

As some of you know, I currently work at a kitchen supply store.  We have all sorts of gadgets, from the mundane to the insane.  The other day, some of the kids in my baking class asked what might be the strangest gadget in our repertoire.  Our manager brought them to the duck press.

The duck press is something that I've noticed in the store since I began working there over two years ago.  However, I never knew what it was, nor did I even think of it as some sort of kitchen tool.  It sits up on a shelf, the only of its kind, as if it is merely a decorative knick knack.  When I learned that it is for sale, and that it retails for just under $2,000, I was filled with curiosity.

What does it do??  What is it for??  A DUCK press?  Do you press the whole duck in there?  What do you press?  Why does it have duck feet??

Well, the initial explanation I received involved pressing organs to make pate juices and au jus.  Duck juice extraction for sauces, essentially.

That was weird, but then I delved further and discovered a classic French dish that goes by a few different names.  If you're lucky, you'll get a canard a la presse, or pressed duck.  If you're some sort of pagan meat fiend, however, you'll order by another name: either canard a la rouennaise, or canard au sang.  Duck in blood sauce, or duck in blood, respectively.

WiseGeek has a pretty good description.

In short, a live duck is strangled (so as to minimise blood loss), partially roasted, and then broken down.  Meaty hunks are removed for further roasting, and then the carcass is pressed to extract all sorts of blood and marrow.  This extraction is used as the basis for the sauce that is then poured over the roasted meat.  Oh yes, all this pressed business is done by the waiter AT YOUR TABLE.  So you get to watch (and presumably hear and smell) the duck get crushed, you sick, sick little man.

If you want to view pictures of the process from La Tour d'Argent, a Parisian restaurant that serves the dish for 130 €, head over to fxcuisine.com.  But I'm warning you, those pictures are nasty gross.

As a side note, La Tour d'Argent has every reason to be proud of their dish.  Canetons à la Rouennaise was on the menu of the "Dinner of the Three Emperors," an eight hour meal that "is reputed to have been the most magnificent ever to have occurred in any restaurant in the world." (yes, I just quoted Wikipedia.)  La Tour d'Argent is the restaurant descendant, so to speak, of Café Anglais, where the dinner took place.

Fancy pants aside, I'll never view that duck press the same way again.  This, friends, is why I stay away from the savory side of the kitchen.