FORKS & THE ROAD

Last Saturday afternoon I ate and judged 20 duck dishes for the Great Amazing Duck Race. Modelled after the popular television show The Amazing Race, students from colleges across Ontario competed in the ultimate farmto-fork competition, sponsored by King Cole Ducks in Newmarket. Competitors began at the farm at the crack of dawn, searching for duck eggs for breakfast. Knives drawn, they then cut their own duck at the farm’s plant. With their “duck in pot,” each two-person team raced to Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market to buy other ingredients, before ending up at George Brown College for the final cook-off. Students Tabitha Hendricks and Scott McInerney of Niagara College took first prize with a Duck Trio appetizer and Citrus Duck Breast main dish. King Cole, a thirdgeneration family business run by four sisters (100-year-old founder, Jim Murby, still often checks in on his granddaughters), has lots to quack about. The sustainable, all-natural farm (free run, no drugs, grain- and spring-waterfed) raises over 2 million ducks annually. It’s fully vertically integrated doing breeding, hatching, growing and processing with their own development kitchen and cook plant. Customers at the store can get fresh ducks and parts daily, eggs and fully cooked items such as confit, coq au canard, duck sausage, duck burgers and duck skewers. From duck manure, which goes to garden centres, to duck feathers ,which go into duvets, pillows and clothing, everything is sold but the quack. kingcoleducks. com