Well hello there again! You're just in time for Christmas dinner! Oh, maybe you don't celebrate Christmas? No problem. You can still enjoy this dinner.
Let's have a talk. Let's talk about geese (ducks, swans, waterfoul, birds of a feather, flocking together...).
These animals don't lay for us. Nooo.. they lay to be mamas. <3 Everyone should be a mama who wants to be. It's nice that the song lets the swans swim, the birds call and the other sets sit around doin' their birdly thing. But what'cha gonna do with those goose eggs?
**Hatch em into BABIES GEESE!!!**
(Don't mind me, that's something my neice used to say when she saw goslings in the spring)
Ok, first - (and there are quite a few goose rescue places) HELP SOME GEESE!
Second
Why the himmershcnitz am I talking about geese?
Well, I have a HUGE soft spot for geese and ducks............
Sadly, I guess that a Christmas Goose Dinner is very Olde World Dickinsianish (what a word).
Oh, and I guess you serve it with roast potatoes, and green veggies (maybe some cranberries?) Go ask Martha Stewart cuz I sure as heck don't know.
Well, I'm not going to go get a goose.. no-siree. I'm not even going to create anything that looks remotely like a goose!
(Then what are you yapping about, Sheri?)
Wait - we need to be serious about why you should love geese!
Geese are loving animals. They're fierce protectors, they eat bugs and weeds, they talk to you!
There actually are many more reasons not to put a goose on your dinner table. But lets see why this is a Christmas tradition.
"People have been eating goose all over Europe for thousands of years. The association of geese with the feasts of deep winter and the Solstice's death-and-rebirth theme may go back as far as ancient Egypt, where the goose was the symbol of the creator-god Amen -- the universe itself was sometimes said to have been hatched from a "cosmic egg" produced by this deity. But leaving aside any possible religious connotations, geese were the perfect fowl for small farmers down through the centuries to raise (and later, big farmers too). They were smart, economical to keep -- since they live by grazing and don't need expensive grain -- and best of all, geese are tough, able to withstand disease and bad weather. By contrast, the turkey, which Spanish and West African traders started bringing to Europe from Mexico in the 1600's, needed a lot of coddling in Europe because it had little resistance to the avian disease histamonosis or "black head", a protozoan-borne liver disease of barnyard fowl. So disease-prone and labor-intensive a bird was expensive to raise; since that extra cost was naturally passed along to the customer, turkeys were slow to spread through western Europe.
Meanwhile as populations grew, and demand for geese along with them, prices dropped and geese became cheaper and easier than ever for even city people to enjoy at Christmas. For the last few centuries, as December approached, hundreds of thousands of geese -- sometimes wearing foot protection to help them cope with the hard roads -- would be herded from upcountry farms to cities like London in gigantic flocks, then dispersed to local keepers and breeders for their final fattening. People in city suburbs even raised geese in their back yards: the loss of a city-bred goose like this is what gets Sherlock Holmes involved in "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." It would be nearly another half-century before the price of turkeys would drop low enough for them to start competing with geese. Until then they were seen as a pricey fad food only suitable for gourmands and rich people. This is why, in A Christmas Carol, only when the wealthy Scrooge pays for dinner is there any chance the Cratchit family will have a turkey for Christmas. Their own original choice is the traditional and affordable goose.*
These days the popularity of goose is on the rise again as people start to get tired of the tasteless meat of turkeys that have been bred for sheer size, or are simply looking for something that hasn't been intensively reared and is "greener". Geese are perfect in this regard, since there's no such thing as an intensively-reared goose. They're free range by definition, spending the majority of their lives grazing on grass in the open fields. The so-called "green goose", which comes into season around the Christian feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, or Michaelmas (September 29), is reared exclusively on grass and greenery, and is fairly lean. The later "harvest" goose, also called the Martinmas goose for its finishing time around Saint Martin's feast (November 11th), spends its remaining time being fattened on grain, usually wheat or barley, and it's fatter and meatier as a result. This is the classic Christmas goose."
Folks.. just say no - I mean, srsly. Don't eat a goose. Don't eat any animal..
Ok, so what am I making in honor of not eating a goose for Christmas? (um - ever - i've NEVER had goose, proudly, or duck {I did have a pet duck once though and her name was Pooh}).
Ok, considering I've never had it I'm not going to say I'm going to make something taste similar in the least bit.
What I AM going to do, is honor the geese of the world with a yummy fried 'gamey' like dish:
Fried Tempoose w/mashed potatoes & ungoosy gravy and veggies.
;)
Let's do some numbers and see why eating goose isn't good for you, OR a goose.
Real Goose The Gabble sistes fried tempoose
4 oz 8 oz
Calories - 340 208
Total Fat - 18.1 14.8
Cholesterol - 137 0
Sodium - 109 5
Total Carbs - 0 6
Fiber - 0 3
Protein - 41.5 10.5
WW Pts - 9 5
Peeps, 4 oz isn't much (and compare it to 8 oz of FRIED tempeh!?! Do we really have to argue?) And if you want to see the numbers for my mashed taters, let me re-refer you HERE. Do we really need veggie numbers?
So, this will be my Christmas dinner. Family is having (I dunno, something with noodles and I asked the mom to make me noodles too).
I'm sure there will be a salad... Ms Vegan Or Not is making a chocolate cake for me to take, too.
Either way, it'll be Merry Merry! And if I can get through ALL the baking I've done and will be doing up until Christmas Day, it'll be yayness!
So, that being said.
No geese.
Love geese.
(They LOVE vegan caramel corn).
And, if I could emplore you to go hug a few Muscovy ducks while you're at it, please do. Those lil guys are like nothing you've ever loved on before. (Think dog with feathers).
<3
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah Etc, etc... Happy LOVE ANIMALS EVERYDAY DAY!!
Music enjoyed while blogging:
The RAIN..
Current Motivation:
Thinking how much this weather is for the birds
Current Craving:
Grandma's noodles.
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