Wash the duck well with soap and water, rinse repeatedly. Remove entrails and clean well. Wash and rinse some more, then chop into conventional pieces. Soak them for ten minutes in a pot of cool water with a spoonful of cal dissolved in it. Rinse again. Then soak it overnight in cool water and the juice of a dozen limes. Next day, the meat will be sweet smelling and free of the gaminess to which duck is prone.
Wash the maize grains a few times in clear water, then soak them in a pot of water with a spoonful of cal. Boil five or ten minutes until the “cascaritas” (yellow outer skins) slip off easily. Throw them in cold water and rub off the cascaritas until the maize is pale.
Now light a burner on the gas stove and set the huajillo chiles one by one directly over the flame until they start to char a little bit, then flip so both sides are lightly blackened.
Remove seeds, chop into small pieces. These distinctive red chiles help give the pozole broth its characteristic red coloring.
Next, break out the “mocahete”, one of those large, quintessentially Mexican mortar and pestle units made of volcanic rock, and crush the chopped chiles.
Add:
¼ tbsp cumin
¼ oz oregano
6 cloves of diced garlic
¼ tbsp black pepper
1 “pisca” (tiny trace) of clove dust
Crush everything together, then sift it through a special large-holed colander a few times to blend everything together evenly.
Bring a large cauldron of water to boil, and add the maize, duck and spices. Chop an onion in half and throw it in, too. Scald and peel the tomatoes, liquefy them with water in a blender, and add to the mix.
Cook for 4 or 5 hours until tender.
Serve with fresh limes and finely chopped radish, onion, and cabbage (first, she soaks the cabbage in “microdyn”, to disinfect it, then rinses it repeatedly).
Accompany with tostadas, salsa, room temperature coca-cola for the kids (cold liquids are bad for children) and ice cold Pacifico beer for brave adults.
You can hardly find this exquisite, authentic and very traditional dish anywhere outside the homes of Mexican grandmothers, and you haven’t lived until you have tried it. The challenge, of course, is obtaining a live duck, but, like they say, ask some taxi drivers, they know where to find anything!
¡Buen provecho!
Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico, April 18Th 2008.- 
Now the fun begins as the family chases the ducks around the garden until they catch the unlucky one, decapitate it with a machete, and let it bleed into a clean bucket for 20 minutes or so. Soak it a few minutes in a pot of boiling water (always purified!), pluck as best you can, then singe any clinging bits of remaining feathers off over a burning pile of newspapers.
