“A goose must never be eaten the same day it is killed. If the weather is cold, it should be kept a week before using.

A goose, from its profusion of feathers, looks like a large bird when walking about, but when plucked and prepared for the spit, it will be found very deceptive.

It is much more hollow than a turkey and except for the breast, there is but little eating on it. In large families, it is usual to have a pair of roast geese, one not being sufficient. Geese are not good except for roasting, or in a pie.” (from an 1800s cookbook)

INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

PREPARING A GOOSE
In preparing a goose for cooking, save the giblets for the gravy. Before cooking, let it lie several hours in weak salt and water to remove the strong taste. Then plunge it in boiling water for five minutes, if old. After the goose has been washed and wiped inside and out, truss it so as to look round and short. Its hollow body will require a great deal of stuffing.

To eat with the goose, have plenty of apple sauce made of fine juicy apples, stewed very dry, well sweetened, and flavored with the grated yellow rind and juice of a lemon.

ROAST GOOSE OVER A FIRE
Wipe out the inside with a cloth and sprinkle in some pepper and salt. Put dressing into the goose and press it in hard, but do not entirely fill up the cavity as the mixture will swell in cooking. Tie the goose securely round with a greased or wetted string, and paper the breast to prevent it from scorching.

Fasten the goose on the spit at both ends. The fire must be brisk and well kept up. It will require from two hours to two and a half to roast.

Baste it at first with a little salt and water and then with its own gravy. Take off the paper when the goose is about half done, and dredge it with a little flour towards the last.

Having parboiled the liver and heart, chop them and put them into the gravy, which must be skimmed well and thickened with a little browned flour.

ROAST GOOSE IN THE OVEN
For a family dinner, a goose is very good stuffed with well-boiled potatoes, mashed smooth, with plenty of fresh butter or gravy. Sweet potatoes make an excellent stuffing. So do boiled chestnuts, mashed with butter or gravy.

Fill the goose with a dressing and grease with sweet lard or butter. Lay in a pan with the giblets, neck, etc. Pour in two teacups of boiling water, set in a hot oven, and baste frequently. Turn so that every part may be equally browned. Serve with gravy or onion sauce.

A CHRISTMAS GOOSE PIE
These pies are always made with a standing crust. Put into a sauce-pan one pound of butter cut up, and one and one-half pints water. Stir it while it is melting and let it come to a boil. Then skim off whatever milk or impurity that may have risen to the top. Have ready four pounds of flour sifted into a pan. Make a hole in the middle of it and pour in the melted butter while hot. Mix it with a spoon to a stiff paste, adding the beaten yolks of three or four eggs. Knead it very well with your hands on the paste-board, keeping it dredged with flour till it ceases to be sticky. Then set it away to cool.

Split a large goose and a fowl down the back, loosen the flesh all over with a sharp knife, and take out all the bones. Parboil a smoked tongue, then peel it and cut off the root. Mix together a powdered nutmeg, one-fourth ounce powdered mace, one teaspoon each pepper and salt, and season with them the fowl and the goose.

Roll out the paste near an inch thick, and divide it into three pieces. Cut out two of them of an oval form for the top and bottom, and the other into a long straight piece for the sides or walls of the pie. Brush the paste all over with beaten white of egg, and set on the bottom piece the long piece that is to form the wall, pinching the edges together to form a circle, and cementing them with white of egg. The bottom piece must be large enough to turn up a little around the lower edge of the wall piece, to which it must be firmly joined all round.

When you have the crust properly fixed, so as to be baked standing alone without a dish, put in first the goose, then the fowl, and then the tongue. There must be no bones in the pie. Lastly, cover the ingredients with half a pound of butter, and pat on the top crust, which, of course, must be also of an oval form to correspond with the bottom. The lid must be placed not quite on the top edge of the wall, but an inch and a half below it. Close it very well, and ornament the sides and top with festoons and leaves cut out of paste. Notch the edges handsomely, and put a paste flower in the center. Glaze the whole with beaten yolk of egg, and bind the pie all round with a double fold of white paper. Set it in a regular oven, and bake it four hours.

This is one way of making the celebrated goose pies that it is customary in England to send as presents at Christmas. They are eaten at luncheon, and if the weather is cold and they are kept carefully covered up from the air, they will be good for two or three weeks; the standing crust assisting to preserve them.

Image from Deposit Photos

This a great video showing how to Make a Standing Crust.

=================================================

Have You Ever Eaten Goose? Please Leave a Comment Below.

=================================================

• Vintage Cooking From the 1800s – Poultry
  

  Do you enjoy reading old-fashioned cookbooks? Learn how people used and cooked poultry in the days before gas and electricity were available in homes. Food was precious back then and nothing was wasted. It was a source of pride to cook delicious food for the family and knowing how to budget time and money.

  “Vintage Cooking in the 1800s – Poultry” provides information, advice, and recipes gathered from various cookbooks published in the 1800s. It will give you a sense of history and an appreciation of what cooking was like in olden times.

  Some How-to Sections:

  • How to Select and Dress Poultry
  • How to Keep Poultry Fresh.
  • How to Boil, Stew, Bake, Roast, and Fry poultry.
  • How to Cook Giblets, Make Dressings, Sauces, Gravies, Pies, and Soups.
  • How to Make Dishes from Chicken, Duck, Goose and Turkey.

  Available from these online Retailers:

  Amazon, Kobo, Apple, Barnes&Noble, Scribd, 24 Symbols,  Playster, Angues & Robertson, Mondadori Store, and more

  Also available in Regular Print and Large Print on Amazon.

=================================================