Oranges from the Medici gardens
There’s a dish in Italy called vitello tonnato that I tried in Piedmont. Sliced veal topped with delicious tuna, anchovies and a lather of mayonnaise. It was juicy, tender, fresh and braver than anything I’ve ever tried. Until my friend George flipped it on its head and created an antithetical iteration called ‘tonnato vitello’. Raw tuna dressed lightly in a veal consommé.
This blog post reflects this radicalisation, flipping my first entry on its head and focusing on ‘Canard à l’Orange’. It was introduced to France by Catherine de’Medici from Italy. The sweetness, sourness and fat that come with the dish are typical of Italian Renaissance cuisine, such as recipes found in Bartolomeo Scappi’s notebooks (Potts 2023). Often, meats would be paired with a sweeter, fruitier sauce. I found this exchange endearing, as Italians used French as a cultural amplifier when it comes to cuisine, yet this dish has the opposite cultural exchange history.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, France formally codified ‘canard à l’orange’ through Auguste Escoffier, who refined the heavier spice and fruit found in its Renaissance origins through vinegar and stock (TasteAtlas 2019). Yet, it is actually popularly abhorred in the contemporary culinary industry, with Gordon Ramsay describing it as “the culinary equivalent to flared trousers.” (Kracklauer 2010).
My friend Said is a chef at one of Melbourne’s iconic institutions, France-Soir. I asked him how they circumvent the negative discourse surrounding this dish and what tweaks his recipe makes. As he cooked it and narrated his adaptations, I wondered how anyone could hate such a dish. Of course, we paired the tasting with a skin-contact Sauvignon Blanc that went straight to our heads, where anything could have tasted euphoric.
Citations:
Duck ‘à l’orange’: a recipe from the Medici court | Visit Tuscany 2025, Visittuscany.com.
Kracklauer, B 2010, Duck à l’Orange: Grande Dame, Saveur, viewed 12 March 2026, <https://www.saveur.com/article/Kitchen/Grande-Dame-Duck-a-lorange/>.
Potts, O 2023, In defence of duck à l’orange, The Spectator, viewed 12 March 2026, <https://spectator.com/article/in-defence-of-duck-a-lorange/>.
TasteAtlas 2019, Canard à L’orange | Traditional Duck Dish From France, Western Europe | TasteAtlas, Tasteatlas.com, TasteAtlas, viewed 12 March 2026, <https://www.tasteatlas.com/canard-a-lorange>.
