In this smart, affectionate culinary memoir, food writer and lifelong Francophile David McAninch chronicles an eight-month epicurean journey in France's rural Southwest: the ancient Gallic cradle of foie gras, confit, and magret de canard, among other duck-centric delicacies. Intrigued by Gascony since traveling there on assignment for a cooking magazine, McAninch persuaded his wife and young daughter to move to an unprepossessing village in the Gers--Gascony's agricultural heartland--and attempt to live as the Gascons do.McAninch sets out to master ultratraditional Gascon dishes, like wine-braised duck legs, poule au pot, garbure (a meaty peasant soup), and cured duck breast, and rustic yet exceedingly hard-to-pull-off desserts, including the formidable hearth-baked confection known as gâteau à la broche. He provisions his meals at the weekly market; imbibes the inky local wines; immerses himself in Gascony's history and folklore; and takes part, occasionally at the cost of his pride, in such local rites of passage as the pigeon hunt, the wine harvest, and the distillation of Armagnac. When McAninch succeeds in these endeavors--and even more so when he doesn't--he learns some unexpected things about his potential as a cook, and ultimately undergoes a fundamental rewiring in the way he thinks about food, wine, and life in general.Beautifully illustrated with whimsical drawings and featuring a wonderful appendix of classic recipes, Duck Season is an irresistible invitation to embrace the pleasures of the table--guiltlessly and with gusto--joining such books as A Year in Provence and Under the Tuscan Sun in the canon of sensual, food-infused memoirs of European country life.