Dish of the day

They remember the goose as the centrepiece of the dinner table on these special days. But times are a-changing and Roy Lewis explains how the goose is spreading its festive wings . . .

MICHAELMAS Day is a great festival of the Church of Rome and observed as a feast by the Church of England. Over the years this feast had been slipping into history, but there are signs that the Michaelmas goose is on the move again, with city stores making them available and an increasing number of restaurants including goose on their menus during the autumn.

Judy Goodman of Great Witley, on the Hereford-Worcester border, sells 200 birds during the Michaelmas period.

"Some people still like their Michaelmas goose and want to keep the tradition going," she says. "The birds are excellent for the dinner table and there does seem to be a greater interest."

Michaelmas was, traditionally the time, when the goose was a gift from the tenant to his landlord, and Christmas is not now the only 'high day' when the goose adorns a festive table.

Increasingly, Easter, whether it be in March or April, is also seeing demand for goose.

We shouldn't be too surprised by this trend as we become more and more healthconscious.

The dark meat of the goose is succulent and lean and, often as not, has been reared on pasture and grain without growth promoters or addititives. And then there's the added bonus: goose fat. Anyone who has ever tasted roast potatoes cooked in goose fat will vouch for their flavour.

What could be healthier or exciting than that!

Easter apart, February, March and April are vitally important months in the goose-producing calender. This is when those birds destined for the table in the latter part of the year are set down as hatching eggs. Indeed, traditionally it was said in country areas that a good goose should start laying on Valentine's Day.

Here in Herefordshire, Hereford's Poultry Market, one of the few remaining markets of its kind in the country, still deals in geese and it still receives fertile goose eggs which will be sold at auction for setting under broody geese.

"While an increasing number of farmers now buy in their goslings as day-olds, there is still a call for the traditional trade, selling the fertile eggs," says auctioneer David Probert of Sunderlands.

"Clearly times have changed, in no small measure due to the problems currently besetting the poultry industry, but raising geese as part of a truly mixed farming economy is still important to smaller traditional farmers."

Commercially the goose, by virtue of the fact that it is reared on pasture, has not been farmed in the way that the turkey has, selecting strains that have been developed solely to increase the amount of white breast meat. Geese, then as now, are still produced to a relatively smilar weight, about 13-15lb.

In rural Herefordshire, where its rich grasslands and traditional farm holdings still helps stitch a colourful patchwork into the landscape, springtime is a season in the calendar when the goose coninues to play its part in the farm economy, either being sold as goslings or forming part of the festive table for Easter.

Take a gander

Michaelmas is steeped in history. It used to mark the "crown" of the year and the turn of the seasons when debts and rents were paid, magistrates were appointed, farms changed hands and it was customary for tenants to present their landlords with a good stubble goose.

Archives reveal that in the tenth year of the reign of Edward 1V, John de la Hay was bound to pay to William Barnaby, Lord of Lastres, in the county of Hereford, for a parcel of the demesne lands, one goose fit for the lord's dinner, on Michaelmas Day.

Queen Elizabeth I is said to have been eating her Michaelmas goose when she heard of the defeat of the Spanish Armada.

Country people used to believe that eating a goose on Michaelmas day ensured good fortune for the coming year.

The saying goes: "Whoever eats goose on Michaelmas Day shall never lack money for his debts to pay."