Yilan smoked duck (ya shang)

What it is

Ya shang (鴨賞) is a whole duck that has been salted, dried in the open air and smoked over sugarcane, which colours the meat and gives it a faint sweetness. The result is firm and salty, a little like duck jerky. It is a speciality of Yilan County in north-east Taiwan, known across the island and sold frozen, either whole and boned or in sliced packs.

Where it came from

In Taiwanese the name is pronounced ah-siúnn, and the proper written form is 鴨鯗. The character 鯗 refers to fish split open and dried, a similar treatment to the duck's. A folk explanation reads 賞 as "reward", because meat was once a generous present.

Wujie Township, often flooded by typhoons, took up duck keeping to make up for lost crops. When laying ducks stopped producing eggs, a few fat ones went to the gods as offerings and the rest were cured. A family account credits Chang A-ping (張阿平) of Xiafu Village (下福村) with the smoking method in the Japanese era. He hung ducks in an old bamboo steamer over the stove and smouldered sugarcane on the embers. The craft then passed through three generations of the Lai (賴) family. Wooden smoking cabinets replaced the stove method in the 1970s to raise output.

Around that decade nearly every household in Wujie, Dongshan and Jiaosi kept ducks. In 1993 the government banned duck farming on rivers, and many farmers moved or gave up.

How it is made

The duck is gutted, split and washed, then rubbed with salt. One account gives seven days of curing. Thin bamboo strips are crossed inside the body to hold it open, and the bird is hung outdoors to dry. It then goes into a smoking oven over charcoal with white sugarcane, until the meat takes on colour and sweetness. Traditionally the bird was a laying duck past its prime; at least one large maker now uses Peking duck.

How to eat it

Ya shang is eaten cold, sliced thin, on its own, with drinks or over hot rice. A common dressing mixes soy sauce, rice wine, vinegar, sugar, sesame oil and garlic, and chopped duck also goes into fried rice. It was once mainly a Lunar New Year food. Packs are usually frozen, so thaw before slicing.