CHRISTMAS GOOSE
"The goose which the Celts had kept for pleasure were probably of the grey leg variety which has remained the principal domestic goose of Britian." (p. 114)..."Goose was in season twice in its life, a young goose in early summer, and the fattened bird at Michaelmas. (p. 121)
---Food in Britain: From the Stone Age to the Nineteenth Century, C. Anne Wilson [Academy Chicago:Chicago] 1991"The Christmas bird provided by the familiar "goose club" may be compared with the German Martinmas goose. The more luxurious turkey must be relatively an innovation, for that bird seems not to have been introduced into England until the sixteenth century."
---Christmas: Customs and Traditions, Their History and Significance, Clement A. Miles [Dover Publications:New York] 1976 (p. 284)"The Martinmas or Michaelmas roast goose is actually the perpetuation of the ceremonies of Celtic Samhain or Hallowe'en and Germanic Yule, originally the first day of the New Year, now our 1st November. Van Gennep, writing on French folklore, reminds us that it was a good occasion for feasting on tender geese that had must been fattened. Originally roast goose was a thank-offering for the harvest that had been gathered in, the Erntedankfest or harvest home, a sacrifice first to the spirit of vegetation, the to the gods of Odin and Thor. The goose, ritually eaten, magically ensured the regeneration in the months to come of nature as she went underground for the winter, precisely parallel to the Greek myth of the abduction of Persephone by the lord of the underworld...The great feasts of Samhain-All Saints' and St. Martin's Day on 11th November were thus rituals uniting the assembled company of the living with the spirits of the dead...During the Renaissance the tradition of eating goose on All Saints' Day was still widely observed..."
---History of Food, Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, translated by Anthea Bell [Barnes and Noble Books: New York] 1992 (p. 352-3)"Feasting on geese has long been a tradition in the Old World, as is clear from ancient mythology. The prevalence of goose gods in numerous cultures attests to the ritual importance of geese and to the fact that these rituals date back to antiquity...The goose feast that came to characterize holiday celebrations in later times arise as a modern-day derivative of these ancient rites and sacrifices. People in Europe, Central Asia, North America, and North Africa customarily sacrified geese, particularly at the turn of the seasons. Like other migratory fowl, geese appeared and diappeared at crucial times in the yearly cycle, so eating them customairly accompanied ceremonial events in the solar and agricultural year. People have linked geese to the changing seasons for so long that originally the goose served as a sacrifice to the spirit of vegetation, in thanks for the harvest. After the goose was ceremonially killed, participants in the sacrifice feasted on its flesh in a ritual that they believed would ensure the regeneration of the Earth...Goose was served at the Celtic Samhain, or Halloween; the Germanic Yule, originally the first day of the new year; and Michaelmas, the ritual feast of the winter solstice. The Michaelmas feast is probably the most famous goose feast, apart from that at Christmas dinner...Turkeys, native to the New World, were more plentiful than geese during the period of early settlement. American settlers served turkey at Thanksgiving, making it the seasonal feast bird. In much of the Western world today, turkeys have replaced geese also at the Christmas feast; but for all practical purposes, these two birds share the same symbolism. Just as the people of the Old World connected geese to the sun, some of the North American tribes connected turkeys to the sun."
---Nectar and Ambrosia: An Encyclopedia of Food in World Mythology, Tamra Andrews [ABC-CLIO:Santa Barbara CA] 2000 (p. 105-6)"Martinmas had once all the customary accompaniments of Christmas, ..but gradually, from the time of the Roman occupation of Europe and its later solistial New Year, the majority of those celebrations were moved forward to the later December date. All Souls' Day and Hallowe'en--a time of falling leaves and fire festivals to help the sun's struggle with darkness--have in most countries similarly moved forward much of their old ritual to the Christmas period...In Germany and elsewhere the goose was the recognized Martinmas dish. And in England, as a large and succulent bird, it took its place for a long time as the most popular Christmas dish...The turkey was a gift from the New World. Spanish ships first brought it back from the Aztecs of Mexico to Spain: thence it would have arrived in the Spanish Netherlands and finally it came to prosper in England's Holland of East Anglia where the great turkey farms were started. It arrived in Spain in 1519; and it is said to have been eaten in England in the third decade of that century, though possibly the bird was then confused with the guinea-fowl. When the guinea-fowl, well known to the ancient Romans and Greeks, was rediscovered by the Portuguese in Africa at the beginnning of the sixteenth century, it came to England dubbed as the Turkie-Henne'."
---A Book of Christmas, William Sansom [Mcgraw-Hill:New York] 1968 (p. 144-5)
My great-great English grandfather insisted goose to be served for Xmas ...... the rest of the dishes could be Bohemian ....hmmm garlic and poppyseeds....... Half of that side of my family still serves goose......my grandmother slacked off in the 60's and started rotating meats.