The wild ducks

First catch your duck. By which I mean, of course, first shoot your duck. I don’t shoot ducks, or any creatures, but I wanted to cook, and eat, some mallard ducks. So, first catch your duck hunter.

- MICHELE HEWITSON

Duck hunters don’t much bother eating mallard ducks, which pretty much come in the same category as possums. There is an old joke about cooking possums: put one in a pot with an old boot, cook for eight hours, remove the possum and eat the boot.

I asked our mate Blokesy Stokesy, who lives right around the bend, to shoot me a couple of ducks. He said: “Are you going to pluck them?”

“Of course,” I said, airily. Greg said: “Do you know how to pluck a duck?” I didn’t.

I asked Stokesy to deliver my ducks with their heads cut off . I once ordered some ducks for a Christmas lunch and they arrived with their heads on. I put paper towels over their heads. I didn’t want to look at them looking at me with their beady dead eyes while I cut their heads off . I asked Stokesy to also cut my mallards’ little legs off , and gut them. I don’t ask for much.