ISSUE 83, HOLIDAY REVELRY, Part 3: Christmas Goose
Christmas Goose
Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat,/ Please to put a penny in the Old Man’s Hat.
Many Americans know about goose as the centerpiece of the Christmas feast theoretically. They’ve seen Ebenezer Scrooge buy the Christmas Goose to share with the Cratchits in “A Christmas Carol.” But goose only appears at the upscale groceries in town during the holiday season. Turkey and Ham—that’s the plan!
Some families with strong European traditions opt for a goose and make arrangements to get it. Indeed goose’s most ardent champions during the 20th century tended to be restaurateurs helming German, French, and British fare. Luchow’s, the bastion of German cookery in New York City throughout the 20th century, was famous for its Christmas menu fearing a roast goose, always parboiled before being roasted.
When I lived in Chicago in the 1970s the Polish grocery serving Avondale had geese in the meat chiller amid the forest of sausages hanging from overhead.
When the American preference for turkey is discussed, it is usually explained by some form of “the turkey is America’s native game bird.” If you counter by saying the Canadian Goose is also a plentiful native game bird in the United States, a puzzled silence ensues. No need to mention the many domesticated species brought from Europe or developed in the United States (Cotton Patch Goose hereabouts). One butcher did add a tidbit that made me think: because the thigh is attached near the backbone, the goose presents difficulties jointing and carving. The turkey is an easy cut. The most untestable claim you will encounter is that a European who has goose regularly during the winter months will not suffer from the sniffles, fever blisters, or chest colds. The French particularly believe in the prophylactic qualities of the goose heavy diet.
Sooner or later adventurous American cooks opt for a holiday goose as an experiment. My mother did so when I was 26 and came home for Christmas while in graduate school. There was a plentitude of fat in the pan when it was extracted from the oven. She saved it of course. When my father carved the thing, much to my surprise it seemed all dark meat. There was not the disparity between white breast meat and dark thigh and leg meat characteristic of turkey. The ample fat made the meat moist, but when looking at 19th century cooking instructions, the fear of lipids in some quarters had recipe writers doing every sort of culinary trick to insure that what came to the table was as free of fat as possible. Some phobias never die. I know people in 2023 whose fear of fat (my cholesterol readings are so high!) borders on pathology. My advice: savor the succulence.
Turkeys have impinged on the European tendency to feature goose at the Christmas table. It has knocked the peacock entirely from the feasting board. One wonders whether the Victorian era goose clubs—in which working men set aside funds during the year to have a sufficient cash reserve to purchse a Christmas goose—has been supplanted by Turkey clubs.
Prior to the mid-19th century Goose was stuffed, spitted, and cooked hearthside before a fire. The earliest southern recipes describe this method. Here’s Mary Randolph’s instruction from The Virginia Housewife:
The traditional accompaniment was apple sauce. In South Carolina the breasts were sometimes extracted, pressed, and smoked as a winter treet. The remainder of the carcass was stewed with celery and turnips.
Sources: “The Christmas Goose—Cures, Colds, Coughs, and Croup,” Memphis Commercial Appeal (December 14, 1913), 15. “It’s Traditional to Serve Roast Goose,” Register Mail (December 13, 1967), 13.