Editing Canvasback (section)

==Cuisine==

Canvasback ducks were a particularly prestigious [[game (hunting)|game]] dish in mid-19th-century America. They were rarely found on everyday menus, and often featured at banquets. They were generally sourced from [[Maryland]] and [[Chesapeake Bay]], and their flavor was attributed to their diet of wild celery. By the end of the century, though, they had become "scarce, expensive, or unobtainable".<ref>Paul Freedman, "American Restaurants and Cuisine in the Mid-Nineteenth Century", ''The New England Quarterly'' '''84''':1:5-59 (March 2011), {{doi|10.1162/TNEQ_a_00066}}, pp. 36, 39</ref>

[[Edith Wharton]] refers to canvasback  with  [[blackcurrant]] sauce as an especially luxurious dinner served in [[New York City]] in the 1870s. Canvasback duck was a canonical element, along with [[Terrapin à la Maryland]], of the elegant "Maryland Feast" menu, an "elite standard... that lasted for decades".<ref>Paul Freedman, "Terrapin Monster", p. 51–64 of Dina Khapaeva, ed., ''Man-Eating Monsters: Anthropocentrism and Popular Culture'', {{isbn|9781787695283}}, p. 59</ref>