It will probably taste much better if you catch it and feed it something other than its normal diet for a week or so....

Around here, they're only in season in Fall. Never eaten any myself.

OK, I'm a vegetarian, so this is pure curiosity: why throw out the mashed potatoes? Are they unsafe, or just really gross after being soaked with goose grease?

Also, if you're going to throw them out, why not stuff the bird with something sanitary but not otherwise edible (hickory chips might be interesting, for example)?

For non-canada goose, the standard is to stuff with apples and dried berries and eat them, but if you're talking serious game bird I'm betting on the version above.

Oh, and either way the rendered fat is pure gold. I still have some in the back of the fridge from xmas for frying eggs and fruit pancakes.

Goose fat is indeed miraculous. I don't even like goose all that much (or duck) (yes, it's a failing), but we buy those small containers of D'Artagnan goose fat and use it in cooking all sorts of things. Most recently, I used it while frying up onions and other vegetables in a (pretty successful) attempt to replicate Elise Matthesen's excellent lamb stew.

Remember, you can cook your goose, but you can't goose...wait, never mind.

Tom Whitmore" Why? The normal diet of most goose is grasses, and (when they can find them) grains.

I'm losing it. I honestly thought that this post was some kind of obscure political metaphor.

First, catch your goose....

My brother's approach (he's the hunter in the family) to goose is 'pulled goose': goose meat plus BBQ sauce plus slow cooker. Supposedly, this deals well with the fairly gamey nature of the geese he gets. He also likes it because its fire-and-forget nature works well with his med school life.

Xopher@3: I'm going to approach your questions in reverse order.

For the reason for stuffing: I'd guess it's either to buffer the cooking--as rarer game is (usually) better, and a thoroughly stuffed bird is less likely to overcook--or, less likely, to soak up juices and prevent self-basting to limit gamey flavors. In both cases, something dense and cheap is a good idea, and mashed potatoes match both of those requirements.

Regardless of the goal, the potatoes will soak up a lot of things from the meat while at the same time getting agreesively baked; this ruins their texture from both ends and would make them pretty unappetizing.

No promises on any of those ideas being correct, but I'm comfortable with them being in the ballpark.

I always thought the standard line was:

Prepare goose as usual.
Roast in the usual manner with potatoes, onions, ...
Throw out the goose.

Terry - "...and in urban environments, they are known to pick food from garbage bins" I think is the problem.

So, not another post on the goose - deer friendship in Buffalo. Or is it?

I really need to actually buy some birds on the market in stead of just ogling them. They seem to have a nice selection of the smaller fowls, from pigeon to quail.

Wild Canada goose is very lean and tastes more like venison than goose. A good recipe involves basting it with bacon strips, from How to Cook His Goose (and Other Wild Games) by Karen Green and Betty Black (Winchester Press, 1973), "Savory Goose," pp. 86-7.

This is something I'm definitely going to have to print and save. My backup-backup plan for when the earthquake comes is to move to a local lake and roast all the geese who live in the playground.

Mycroft: Not that I've seen (and I've seen lot of geese: California has a fair population of permanent Canada geese [they love golf courses] and various captive breeds [Toulouse, African Grey, Embden] which have escaped, and they aren't much for foraging in the garbage. Some of that is limited flight, but most of it is that what they will eat (vegetables, grains, bread) aren't that common, compared to their preferred forage (grass "stubble", which is what lawns are).

Add the people who go to parks, etc. and feed them, and (at least in LA/SF) they don't need to forage.

In SF Bay the goose/duck season just ended. If I were going to be living here next year, I'd probably get a license and try bag some along Guadalupe Slough.

Some references:

Hunting Urban Geese

Managing Urban Geese

The latter makes no reference to keeping them away from garbage. So while it's possible some geese may go dumpster diving, it doesn't seem to be any sort of significant aspect of their diet in urban areas.

Would meat from a goose that does dumpster diving actually be dangerous?

What I'd be more worried about is the vast quantity of lawn chemicals the lawns they graze on get. We have tons of non-migratory Canada geese here in KC and they like places like the parks and golf courses

They've become enough of a nuisance at the zoo that they regularly round them up and euthanize them. this is because, I believe, they've passed a few illnesses to valuable zoo stock. And they make the walkways in some areas of the zoo nasty and slick.

sara #12: The only time I ate venison I thought it tasted rather like liver. So Canada goose tastes rather like liver?

A note for UK residents: killing a wild Canada goose is illegal here. You may only kill game birds, which are defined as grouse, partridge, pheasant, capercaillie (except in Scotland), snipe, and woodcock. AFAIK, there are no farmed Canada geese, either, so getting hold of one might be a bit tricky. It is apparently sometimes possible, as I understand local authorities sometimes conduct culls, but how common this is I don't know.

From what I hear, I'd love to try one. Unfortunately, it doesn't look likely to happen. :(

apropos of nothing, except tangentially:

Some Geese

EVERY child who has the use
Of his senses knows a goose.
See them underneath the tree
Gather round the goose-girl's knee,
While she reads them by the hour
From the works of Schopenhauer.

How patiently the geese attend!
But do they really comprehend
What Schopenhauer's driving at?
Oh, not at all; but what of that?
Neither do I; neither does she;
And, for that matter, nor does he.

Oliver Herford

Fragano: Either I want to eat the liver you get, or avoid the venison altogether.

That, or someone really cooked it badly.

sara: I have that cookbook. :)

My local meat suppliers don't have any goose so as soon as I have finished posting this I'm going to start preparing the crocodile fillet for stir frying with some lime, ginger and vegetables.

In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, goose hunting season is specifically timed to get only non-migratory populations. If they have a ready food supply, they rapidly become year round pests.

Hereabout, geese are a typical november's or december's food, but they are raised on farms or imported from Hungary and Poland and decidedly neither migratory nor gamey. It is very hard to find a restaurant that serves them any other way than with potato dumplings, red cabbage and gravy - rather predictable and boring.

The "venison tastes a bit like liver" is an experience I get almost every time I try kangaroo. Even an "Australian-style" restaurant served it that way. The only cook who can prepare kangaroo in a delicious way works at a local Mongolian grill. So obviously kangaroos are from Mongolia originally and were introduced to Australia only in 1293, when ships from Genghis Khan's Java flotilla went off course to the south and the roos onboard escaped.
But I digress.

With other venison, like deer or wild sow, the livery taste is much less. Skinned rabbit looks too much like cat for my wife to let me try cooking it. When I ate it at a restaurant, it was traditional Flemish style - braised in lambic with shallots, prunes and cinnamon and served with fries. Very good.

Paul Duncanson @ 22: Do you have experience with crocodile meat already? The only time I tried to cook it (a cut from the tail, IIRC), it tasted very flat and reminded me of flavourless chicken combined with very watery canned tuna. Apparently one has to use a lot of spices, but with that premise, I could have used tofu instead.

I'm pretty sure all the goose I've ever eaten was domesticated. As prepared by my mother, who only did it once that I recall, it was terribly greasy. As prepared by an SCA cook who knew that it needed very good fat drainage, it was tasty and rather like beef, though finer grained.

This last Christmas, while making broth from the turkey carcass, I used a 2-jar skimming system. I skimmed fat and scum (which appeared to be basically protein that wouldn't stay in solution; not desirable in clear broth but not inedible)into the first jar, inevitably taking some broth with; as a thick fat layer built up I spooned it into a second jar. I ended up with a jar of turkey fat, a jar of mixed stuff, and 7 pint tubs of good turkey broth. The mixed fat/broth/scum got dumped into the leftover dressing, so even that didn't go to waste. The fat was excellent for cooking, particularly fried potatoes. I still have some frozen broth.

I've eaten roo, goose, caribou, and venison. I'd say in terms of my preferences:

Roo
Bou
Venison
Goose.

None of them tasted like liver. The roo was rich, sweet and just a tad gamey (it was a rack). The caribou was similar, but less varied; it lacked some of both the richness, and the subtlety.

Venison is pleasantly gamey.

Goose is variable, domestic, or hunted. It wants to be cooked with that in mind (season matters too, spring goose, even domestic has a lot less fat).

Ostrich is overrated, and rabbit want's a salty fat (like pancetta), or to be braised.

Brief note: I got these recipes from a local fellow who is a subsistence hunter.

Jörg @ 24: I do now.

I had eaten croc before. A local resturant does it in a Thai basil and chili stir fry that is quite delicious. I just marinated it for about an hour in lime juice with some black pepper and stir fried it with ginger and some vegetables and tossed a bit of chicken stock and honey in to make a sauce. Next time I'll try a bit of garlic and basil and dial down the honey.

Terry @ 26: Roo is probably my favourite meat and very easy to obtain around here. Emu is also interesting. It's as lean and red as roo but less strong tasting and has an oddly turkey-like aftertaste. On Australia Day, a friend and I took kangaroo and emu steaks to a gathering where we had them cooked together in a coat of arms barbeque. Tastes like patriotism or something.

Jules @ 19: Game birds have protected close seasons and a game dealing licence is needed to sell the resulting corpse.

However, Canada geese appear in Schedule 2 of the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981, which establishes a protected close season for several bird species (mainly ducks and geese), but does not set up any licensing regime. It's legal to kill them during the open season, and anyone can sell the specified wild ducks and geese without being licensed game dealers.

The really weird thing here is that when this was posted, I was off goose hunting for the first time in my life.

Interestingly, the "goose stalkers" caught more than the blokes with rifles.

I would think that the goose-grease-soaked mashed potatoes might not be at their tastiest as-is, given the texture problems of soaking up the cooking juices as well as the fat, but that if formed into cakes, lightly dredged in cracker meal or panko, and pan-fried, they would make FANTASTIC mashed-potato patties.

If my household weren't vegetarian I'd have to try this.

Terry Karney #21: It was imported New Zealand venison, which might have made a difference.

Terry Karney@26

Grew up raising rabbits for meat, and they really benefit from long slow cooking, preferably braised (beer is good), or smothered in vegetables and cooked long and slow in a deep skillet. I may have just located a source for rabbit and am very pleased and looking forward to cooking it once more....

Rikibeth @ 31: Ooooooh. The Greasy Little Delicious Things Grandma Used To Make ride again! (You could even use the goose's liver in them, couldn't you?)

Coincidentally, last night for dinner, I had wild boar (in a red wine and mushroom sauce). It didn't taste anything like liver!

My grandmother always stuffed goose with peeled oranges and cored apples, roughly chopped. While it is roasting, pour orange juice over the bird and then use the pan juices (so the combination of fat and juice from the roasting fruit) to keep it moist. I haven't had it in years. Decades. I wonder where one buys goose in Spain...

As for the Savory Goose recipe, maybe it tasted better because we children were told that there were lead* shot in the meat and we should chew very carefully lest we break our teeth on a pellet. It forced eating at "slow food" pace and the wild goose does have a slightly gamey taste, but nothing like liver.

I haven't had it in a long time. My father used to hunt, but now all the hunting grounds in the Eastern Shore area are rapidly being turned into condominiums.

*I can't remember whether these were actually lead or nickel plated at this date (20-30 years ago).

I'd rather watch the geese and ducks migrate by than shoot at them, so all I've had are domestic birds, but I quite like both (and goose liver is very, very good, even if you don't get it from a stuffed goose). Though I've been tempted to snatch a local goose or two from around town; they're a real pest when they take up year-round residence, but shooting them inside a city is problematic. If I still had my border collie I might have him herd a few birds into my car and take them home.

I've had local venison and did not find it tasted anything like liver; then again, I like most forms of liver and that might make a difference.

I have liked most of the wild game meats I've had, save some of the river fish (and what I had of that was hacked into pieces by the store so the bones were jaggy and off-putting, it was a cook's error, not the fish).

Then again I also like mutton.

Our favorite way to prepare a venison roast is to put it in the crock pot with beer and various seasoning vege (onion, garlic, carrots) and let it go lo low and slow all day.

My brother-in-law once made me a roast goose for my birthday. One of the most delicious presents I've ever gotten.

Rabbits are delicious, and not at all "gamey" in the way that, say, wild ducks might be. Here in Britain they are domestic animals gone feral, originally bred for meat, though they have evolved a bit since.

Put mustard flour on chunks of rabbit, fry in oil with onions and mushrooms, splash on some red wine.

Or slow cook of course.

The only information I've found on Canada geese is that the ones that have been eating grass taste better than the ones that have been feeding in marshes, and that an average bird, weighing 6 pounds dressed, should feed six.

I am trying to decide whether deer liver (which in germany, where I knew most about it, was almost always reserved by the hunter) tastes like the apotheosis of liver or entirely unlike liver. But it depends a lot on what you think liver tastes like.

paul: I think liver is fine, in forcemeats, but by itself, is one of the most frustrating foods in the world.

The smell of it cooking excites me; makes me ravenous. To put the least bit of it into my mouth is to kill my appetite for a week.

Terry: oh, no. I can pop it in my mouth and go straight to some still-sensate equivalent of nirvana. Now I am going into transports of recollection: goose liver spread on a good hrd toast over a layer of schmalz, beef liver cubed, floured and fried hard in butter. (Deer liver is so sweet that I'm not sure how I would cook with it if I wanted to do anything complex.)

Meanwhile, was anyone else as a child told to make do with the "front leg" aka almost entirely meatless wing of a goose?

I don't think you'd want to eat our neighborhood flock of Canadian geese. They've laid claim to the big pond or small lake at the western corner of Green-Wood Cemetery, which collects both the lawn-maintenance chemical runoff, and the seepage from all those 19th C. burials.

The other notable piece of avian turf in Green-Wood Cemetery is the elaborate gate at the 25th Street entrance, which is home to a colony of Monk (a.k.a. Quaker) parakeets.

That's Brooklyn for you: immigrants everywhere.

Teresa @ 46

I find myself wondering whether Quaker parakeets gather and sit mostly in silence until the spirit moves one or other them to squawk 'Pretty Polly' or similar.

(And also, less seriously - if that's possible - whether porridge figures at all in their diet.)

praisegod, 47: It's clearly a misnomer, since Quakers are known to hold with plain dress, and lime green is about as obtrusive as one can get.

Hmm, TexAnne, perhaps, but I can't imagine that someone with naturally green skin, or hair, or (crucially) feathers would be excluded from the Society of Friends. I would venture to say that if they were unsure whether plumage counted as dress or nature they would err on the side of inclusion.

I encourage thee to consider this.

I can say, for an observed fact that plain dress is no longer color limited, and some pretty dramatic choices hair color happen in meetings.

Also, (donning hat of pedantry), they aren't parakeets, nor conures, but parrots.

Myiopsitta monachus is an oddity among parrots being the only species which builds nests (sectioned, into three parts).

And they are illegal in Hawaii, and Pennsylvania, and some other states; primarily because they are hardy, and manage to establish colonies (such as the one Teresa mentioned).

If I were ever to get a parrot they are probably the top of my list, being well-mannered, not too loud and short lived (i.e. about 20-30 years, on average).

FWIW, the Quaker family into whose hands the doll Hitty came did not object to her being provided with a parakeet feather for a quill, because although it was brightly colored it was the parakeet's natural coloring, and not adopted show.

#24 (et sequi)

My grandmother refused to buy a rabbit unless it came with the head on. She said she'd once been sold a skinned cat(*) and was determined it would never happen again.

* I think during WWII in Scotland, possibly WWI. Once you get down to the bones, they are noticably different, spine and pelvis particularly.

Rikibeth @52...Have I found another Hitty fan here?

I have a first edition of the book signed by the illustrator, Dorothy P. Lathrop.

I also have several Hitty dolls...

Rikibeth (52)/Lori Coulson (54): I enjoyed Hitty* as a child, although I wouldn't call myself a fan now. I did recognize the reference immediately, before checking the Rikibeth's link.

*read several times

When I used to do performance art picnics at the Faire, I'd share the broken meats with customers (I was a body servant to a viscount, he and the guests would retire, and the other servants would dine).

Once we had rabbit (we had quail, ducks tongues, galantine of venison, kid, lamb, goose, duck, beef (roasts and joints), chicken, frogs legs [not to be eaten cold, it was sort of like gelatinised swamp] trout, eels, and I forget what all else; over the course of years).

I never lied to people about what we were eating. They didn't always believe me. It wasn't until I got to the scapula that they did believe me about the rabbit.

They were then, a bit, appalled.

Lori Coulson @54, I read it multiple times as a child, retained a great deal of her adventures (it didn't hurt that I summered in Maine, where Prebles exist to this day) and re-read it as an adult, discovering that my mind had filled in more depth and richness than were there in the plain words, but it was still delightful. And I covet your copy.

It was all I could do not to instantly order one of the used copies for myself when I created the link, but I've been doing a little too much of that lately, and should wait until at least next week.

Rikibeth, there's a Yahoo group devoted to Hitty, and there are even gatherings of Hitty doll collectors (and, holy moly, you should see the clothes some of them make for a 6 and 1/4 inch doll).

Googling on Hitty will bring you a host of links, even one Hitty who has her own blog about her current travels...

Lori: oh my goodness! I don't think I'm THAT dedicated a fan, but it sounds marvelous.

I didn't dress a Hitty doll, but I acquired a Chinese reproduction of a farthing Dutch doll from a RevWar re-enactors' catalog, and started dressing a Tottie. The Rumer Godden doll books also made a big impression on me.

Terry Karney #56: The question of eating rabbit makes an interesting test of people's squick lines.

For my own case, I had a rabbit for most of 6 years, and while I loved him dearly, he did not impress me with his intelligence or depth of personality. (Hint: Rabbits are not actually a good pet for an apartment-dweller. Despite being small, they are outdoor animals.)

I won't say that I'd never eat rabbit, but I haven't yet, and having had one as a pet would put me off a bit. On the other hand, I wouldn't try to chase other people away from eating it, because I know perfectly well that rabbits make a particularly good meat animal: non-endangered (indeed, pestiferous), high-r reproducers, and excellent converters of trash (weeds, scraps) to meat. (And yes, not particularly bright.)

David Harmon: Rabbits as pets are a mixed bag. The real problem is most aren't that small. They are housebreakable (and really easily). If neutered they live longer and are better pets.

I've kept rabbits: and chickens, and frogs, and horses, and guinea pigs. worked with sheep, goats, cows and horses. This hasn't kept me from eating any of them.

I realise this probably shows me to be a lot different from most.

Rikibeth @59: Ditto on Rumer Godden -- I haven't managed to read all of her doll books yet, my favorite is Holly and Ivy.

Tottie, as I recall is smaller than Hitty, isn't she? I have a mini-Hitty who is three inches tall, thank heavens the doll maker provides a pattern for her dress, I'm not sure I could have worked something out on my own. The micro-Hittys at an inch and a half came dressed, and I'm not going to try to make dresses for them!

Do you like Elizabeth Goudge's novels as well?

Terry Karney #61: Mine was a neutered male, I don't remember his poundage, only that he was just about twice the weight given by my Mammals book for a wild rabbit.

The thing is, he wasn't all that reliable about going back to his cage to pee and/or poop, especially at night. My big mistake was being too softhearted to shut him into his cage at night....

He also chewed on everything, including: (1) undermining my bookshelves to the point of collapse, (2) Electrical and computer cords: for 6 years I was fighting the War of the Wires, (3) The carpet!

David Harmon @63...oh, yeah, "A bunny is a delightful habit, every home should have a rabbit." NOT.

My college flatmates read Watership Down, and had to have a rabbit. We lost every electrical cord plus the wiring for the stereo. The only wires that were not devoured were those to the TV and Cable box.

And litter-box trained? Hah! That was one creature I was happy to say farewell to... I still can't figure out how the bunny didn't end up being fried by his choice of fodder.

David, #63: I prefer my bunnies anthropomorphic. :-)

When I was a kid I was an avid reader of Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and their ilk. They regularly featured odd little cartoon advertisements for frozen bunny meat:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sa_steve/3560780996/

The producer still sells bunny meat . . . but they've branched out:

http://www.pel-freez.com/

Lori @62, I haven't read the Elizabeth Goudge books. I'll have to give them a try!

Our Tottie was about 4" tall, and I got as far as a chemise and petticoat from old linen handkerchiefs, when my kid decided that that was Enough Waiting, and seized the doll and some scraps of pink linen and purple fleece and wrapped her up in them and called it Done. I had meant to do a gown and an apron, but possibly it's just as well, as sleeves on something that tiny are a royal pain. I was pretty much winging it.

Rikibeth, 67: I love Goudge too! But many of her books are quite Christian, so choose carefully. Fortunately she's more like L'Engle than Lewis.

For Goudge, try The White Witch and The Little White Horse. The former is set during the British Civil War, the latter is a children's tale -- I've never been certain as to exact era -- early 1800s maybe?

As to patterns for 4 inch dolls, they do exist, I have found some for the French porcelain Mignonettes. An easy cheat for the 4 inch or smaller dolls is the old SCA T-shape tunic, as you don't have to set in sleeves.

Also, I have taken patterns for Hitty and shrunk them on a photocopier to half their size which then gives you a pattern for a 3-4 inch doll.

The hardest thing is finding trims and notions for the tinier dolls. Wilson has a kit that teaches you to do tiny needlelace for her Hitty.

Honestly, if I reclaim our Tottie and give her outer clothes, I doubt I'll use patterns. I know how to use them, and have to good effect when making things like bridesmaid gowns and RevWar coats and breeches, but I've also done very well just grabbing some muslin and starting by draping - that was how I finally created the bodice for the reproduction Labyrinth ballgown, because the commercial pattern wasn't cooperating and we had to rejigger the sleeves anyway for big puffs (hi, gathering rectangles), and also how I built a back-laced child's RevWar gown -- as it didn't need bodice shaping in the front because of no bosom, and I could just Use My Learnings to go "the back seams curve THIS way under the shoulder blade, good to go!" I boned it with forsythia, not having a willow tree in my yard for osiers.

I haven't decided if Tottie should have something like her dress in the illustrations, or if I should try a tiny short-gown jacket and petticoat. I'm not up to doing tiny needle-lace, but I can make thread buttons, and I have, and I bet I could do them tiny, although seed-beads would also work.

Suspicious.

But it led me to Erik Nelson's poem. So there's that.