You can expect tender meat that falls apart at the touch of your fork, and crisp skin. A clarified meat broth. Here's a term that will be known by the most sophisticated as well as the most rural. Cracklings, whether they're made from duck skin in France or pork skin in North Carolina, are the crunchy leftover skin after the fat is rendered out. Duck cracklings often go on salads.
Pork cracklings go with beer.
An incredibly wonderful creamy custard that will have been topped with sugar and briefly run under a broiler just before serving, so that the sugar melts and then hardens to a glaze. It should make a lovely cracking noise when you pierce it with a spoon. Many restaurants now give it a twist, such as flavoring the cream with coffee. Not as sour as sour cream, not as thick or sweet as whipped cream, this French staple is somewhere in between and can show up in a dessert as well as a savory dish. Pate de foie gras means it is pureed with cream, spices and other ingredients and gently baked to become a spread.