Goose Christmas Dinner
[from Lena Osborne's column in the Tulsa Daily World, Dec. 24, 1921]
As far back as history takes
us,
goose has been the meat for Christ-
mas dinner. Gradually as time
changes all things, we and espe-
cially we of the middle-west and
south, have drifted away from this
delightful custom. ...
Here is a Christmas dinner,
planned around goose as the princi-
ple part of the whole celebration.
Oyster Cocktail
Currant
and Apple Dressing
Roast Goose
Mashed Potatoes
Cauliflower in Sauce
Cranberry Sauce
Celery--Lettuce--Onion
Salad
Hot Mince Pie
Coffee
Cheese Crackers
Nuts
There may be other vegetables
that
may be used in place of the cauli-
flower. However, it should
be one
of the coarse vegetables, as turnips
cabbage, eggplant, onions, etc.,
and
it should be served in cream sauce
as it is not often that gravy is
made
with the goose. However, it
may be.
There is this caution in
planning
the foods to serve with goose.
Goose
is a very greasy meat, and as much
mild acid should be served with
it as
possible .... For
that reason, is better to have one
vegetable in a heavy white sauce
than buttered.
Oyster Cocktail.
(Individual serving.)
3 large
or 5 small oysters.
1 tablespoon
of the sauce.
1/2 lemon slice
The sauce--Mix together,
horse-
radish, tabasco sauce, catsup, salt,
cayenne and lemon juice. These
may be used in proportions to suit
the taste. One cup should
flavor
from 6 to 8 glasses. Put the
half-
round of lemon on the side of the
glass, so it's handy if more acid
is
liked. For the one cup, about
4
tablespoons horseradish, to the
3/4-
cup of catsup is a good foundation
--the other seasonings being added
to suit. Keep oysters on ice
until
ready to serve, then before putting
in the cocktail (sherbet glasses
may
be used) glasses, go over each oys-
ter carefully for bits of shell.
The Goose.
Buy a young goose, not over
a
year old. You can tell this
by sev-
eral ways. If purchased at
the meat
market, the breast should be full
and plump with a white, smooth
skin. Old birds have hairs
on the
skin. If the feet and bill
are red
and hard, the bird is old.
It is said
of all the tough meats in the world,
to try to cook, it is an old goose.
If you should get an old one cook
it
in boiling water, in a covered vessel
until it shows signs of the joints
be-
coming tender, then begin the
roasting.
Weigh the goose, then measure
one teaspoon of salt to the
pound. Rub one-half this amount
on the inside of the bird.
Many
Jewish cooks also rub the inside
with garlic. Fill with the
dressing
and sew the skin together at the
crop and at the opening under the
breast bone with coarse thread.
Rub
the outside with the rest of the
salt
dampened with lemon juice.
Place
in a roaster, cover, add one cup
boil-
ing water and cook slowly.
It will
usually take from two to two and
one-half hours to cook goose.
Apple, Bread and Currant
Dressing.
1 cup washed currants.
1 cup diced, tart apple.
2 cups chunked, toasted bread.
Boiling water.
Minced, crisp bacon.
Cut three slices of fresh,
sweet
bacon in tiny pieces, then cook
crisp
in a skillet. Put all the
other in-
gredients with this, adding boiling
water to moisten. This is
a most ex-
cellent stuffing for goose; the
ap-
ple and currants cutting, as we
might say, the strong flavor of
the
goose fat. However, there
are good
cooks who always use the onion dressing
for goose.
Cranberry Sauce.
While cranberry jelly or
mold will
do as well, there are good reasons
for serving the sauce. The coarse-
ness the skins of the cranberries
lend to the sauce, is an aid to
diges-
tion, and we must admit this is
quite
a heavy dinner.
1 quart washed
cranberries.
1 cup water.
1/2 teaspoon soda.
Cook until the skins pop
and the
berry is mashed. The soda
will cause
a greenish foam to rise. This
will
soon pass away. Then pour
over
three cups of sugar and boil up
once, then set aside to congeal.
The Salad.
Finely shredded head lettuce.
Finely cut celery stalks.
Minced onion.
Vinegar (pure apple cider).
Sugar.
Salt.
Mix the prepared lettuce,
celery
and onion in a wooden bowl or gran-
ite crock. Make a dressing
of the
vinegar, sugar and salt to suit
the
taste, then pour over the salad.
Mix
throughly with two forks, then put
a press on top and let set for a
few
minutes for the flavor to penetrate.
Pile this on salad plates and serve
with the dinner. Getting just
the
right amount of vinegar and sugar
in this had everything to do with
its
delicious flavor. It is a
simple
salad--sort of old fashioned but
it's
ideal for a dinner of this type.
One
of its redeeming features is, that
it
is so easy to make.
If instead of the cranberry
sauce,
a jelly or butter of some sort is
served, then the orange and onion
could be served, and it's de-
licious too. But with the
cranberry,
the orange would make too much fruit.
The cheese may be either
served
with the hot mince pie or afterwards
with crackers. A tiny bit
of Roque-
fort with water crackers and the
cup of black coffee seem to relieve
that over-full feeling after a dinner
of this sort. Plum pudding
may
come in place of the mince pie.
In
fact, even a lighter desert than
either of these might be acceptable,
but with the ability we seem to
have
on occasions of this sort for enjoy-
ing food as long as it is served,
either of the two had better be
pre-
pared.
[note: "...we have drifted away from
this delightful custom." In spite of this observation, enough people still
ate goose at Christmas that the local grocerers advertised it, along with
turkey, duck, and chicken, on this same page of the newspaper. (It was
35 cents a pound in one store, the same as duck; turkey was 50 cents, chicken
28 and 25 cents.)]