A whole duck, its skin dried and glazed, roasted until it shatters, then carved at the table and wrapped in thin pancakes with sweet bean sauce, spring onion and cucumber.
What makes it peking duck
Skin separated from the meat, glazed and dried before it goes in.
Carved at the table into many slices, skin on each.
Rolled in thin wheat pancakes with sweet bean sauce, spring onion and cucumber.
Where it comes from
Roast duck is usually said to have come north with the Ming court when it moved from Nanjing in the fifteenth century. The oldest surviving duck house, Bianyifang, traces itself to 1416 and roasts in a closed oven; Quanjude, founded in 1864, hung its ducks over an open fruitwood fire, and that became the famous way.
The skin is the point. Air is pumped under it to lift it from the meat, it's scalded and brushed with maltose syrup, then hung to dry for hours before roasting.
How it varies
Mèn lú (closed oven)
The older Bianyifang way: the oven is heated, the fire taken out, and the duck roasted in the retained heat.
Duck frame soup
The carcass boiled with cabbage or tofu and served at the end of the meal.