Hefei Roast Duck

Hefei was called Luzhou (庐州) until 1912, and the city's roast duck tradition predates the modern name — it grew out of the Anhui salt-pork (徽腌) family of techniques, where dry curing with peppercorn-salt and air-drying preceded any high-heat cooking. The fruitwood closed-oven roast is regional: pearwood charcoal from Dangshan (northern Anhui) was the standard fuel because it burns clean and smells faintly of the orchard.

Hefei was Luzhou (庐州) until 1912; the duck grew out of the Anhui salt-pork (徽腌) family, where peppercorn-salt cure and 24-hour air-dry preceded any high heat. Pearwood from the Dabieshan foothills was the standard fuel for the closed-oven roast.

Skin is thicker and chewier than Beijing duck — closer to a smoke-roast — and breaks with a salty Sichuan-peppercorn snap, not a thin shatter. Meat is ham-pink near the bone, juicy with a faint fruitwood smoke. You eat it the local way: skin and meat sliced and rolled in a thin pancake with sweet bean sauce, scallion and cucumber slivers, or tucked skin-and-all into a duck-fat sesame griddle cake.

The 24-hour air-dry is the load-bearing step. As skin moisture evaporates, the collagen layer right under it tightens and the surface shifts from rubbery to brittle — only that brittle surface will lacquer evenly when the maltose glaze hits it. Skip air-drying and the skin stays elastic, the maltose pools instead of coating, and the roast comes out blotchy with patches of pale grey. Open hung-oven (same family as Beijing's Quanjude; Beijing's Bianyifang is the closed braising oven) means direct radiant open-flame heat over pearwood charcoal — crisper skin and pearwood smoke, with depth coming from the spiced brine cure rather than salt alone.