6/5/2019 What Exactly Is Duck Sauce?

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FEBRUARY 5, 2015 Laura Kiniry

What Exactly Is Duck Sauce?

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Arts & Culture
If you're from the Midwest or Eastern seaboard of the United States,
duck sauce is likely an orange jelly-like substance—similar to sweet-
and-sour sauce but with a fruitier avor—that comes in packets with
your Chinese takeout. It's typically used for dipping crispy noodles, egg
rolls, and other fried foods. For most New Englanders, duck sauce is a
brownish, sweet and chunky sauce served on the table in Chinese
restaurants. And if you're from someplace like San Diego or a San
Francisco Bay Area native, chances are you've never even heard the
name.

The argument over what constitutes duck sauce runs deep. On their
website Grammarphobia.com, authors Patricia T. O'Connor and
Stewart Kellerman debunk myths and uncover truths on English
grammar, etymology, and usage. They believe the use of the name
'duck sauce' for those packets of orange-colored jelly is an American
brainchild, along with the sauce itself.  

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A Google search for 'duck sauce' turns up Wikipedia users wanting to

combine the website's 'duck sauce' entry with 'plum sauce.' Some say
they're one and the same or, at the very least, that plum sauce is the
basis for duck sauce, which also incorporates apricots (and sometimes
peaches). Others beg to di er. On foodie message boards you'll come
across former Bostonians bemoaning the existence of those orange-
lled packets, and West Coast transplants frantically searching for a
suitable substitute for the sauce they once had at home.

Where the 'duck sauce' name originated is somewhat murky, though

O’Connor and Kellerman do believe that it was originally served with
duck. Unlike chow mein or General Tso’s Chicken, American inventions
that have no place on a traditional Chinese food menu,  Peking duck—a
crispy skinned, roasted duck avored with herbs—has been a staple in
China for hundreds of years and usually (though not always) comes
with a sauce made from wheat our and soybeans for dipping. Since
soybeans aren't native to the United States, there is a theory among
some people that when Chinese immigrants rst established
restaurants targeted to American palates, they created a sweeter,
friendlier substitute using apricots (or in New England's case,
applesauce and molasses) and for obvious reasons called it duck sauce.

To understand the regionalism of duck sauce in general it helps to look

at a larger picture: American Chinese cuisine. “There are distinct east
coast and west coast Peking Duck buns, so why not duck sauce?” says
David R. Chan, a third-generation American and L.A. native who's
eaten at more than 6,600 Chinese restaurants—most of them within
the United States—which he has been chronicling at Chandavkl's Blog
since 2009.
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Chow mein is another dish that varies between coasts. Likely, these
di erences have to do with both Chinese immigration patterns as well
as America's diverse regional culinary preferences. The country's rst
Chinese restaurants were limited to those areas where Chinese
immigrants settled (or were forced to settle), namely the U.S. west
coast and urban 'Chinatowns' nationwide, and were mostly Cantonese.
Then in the 1960s the U.S. lifted nearly a century of restrictive
immigration policies, allowing for an unprecedented number of
Chinese emigrants from regions such as Szechuan and Hunan to
relocate to America. Along with them they brought their own distinct
avors and recipes.

But still, why isn't 'duck sauce' of any kind a West Coast thing? Chan
says he has seen duck sauce packets in California, but fairly
infrequently. “Actually, in the old days I didn't see the packets [around
the L.A. area] at all,” Chan says. “They seem to be a more recent
development now, though still not that common.” When I originally
emailed him about duck sauce, Chan instinctively thought I was talking
about the reddish marmalade-looking condiment that comes alongside
Peking Duck in many Cantonese restaurants. After all, it is the sauce
that comes with duck. Though in most cases this is hoisin sauce, made
of soy sauce, chilies, and garlic, maybe the 'duck sauce' name is simply
implied.

Perhaps 'duck sauce' as a term never made it out west because the main
purveyors of duck sauce packets—companies like W.Y Industries and Yi
Pin Food Products—are based out of the New Jersey and New York area.
These businesses were also formed in the 1970s and ’80s, when the
West Coast's palate for Chinese food was already well established. A
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New York Times article from October 12, 1981, talks about New-York-
based Saucy Susan Products, purveyor of a popular specialty duck sauce
made with apricot and peaches, and its desire to tap into a larger
market. According to the piece, “[Saucy Susan Products] has enlisted
one of the big names in the agency business, Levine, Huntley, Schmidt,
Plapler & Beaver (they do not come much bigger), to help it introduce
its sauces on the West Coast as part of a three-year plan to go
national.” Seems like Saucy Susan's dreams never quite came to
fruition.

Ultimately, we may never know where the term 'duck sauce' comes
from or why one person's packet of jelly-like sauce is another's plum-
colored chutney. But for fans of any kind of duck sauce, it may be worth
it to start stocking your own.

Mapping the Duck

Sauce Definition
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The orange-jelly like substance with a fruitier, tarter avor than

sweet-and-sour sauce
Brownish, sweet chunky sauce
A dark, smooth plum sauce. Like what's served with Peking Duck,
naturally
Never heard of it until reading this article

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