"goose" news and stories

To have someone "cook your goose" isn't exactly a compliment. But in the case of blogger Another pint please..., who was given wild goose breast by a hunter friend, cooking the bird did the hunter (and the bird) proud. Experimenting with a recipe for duck breast, he grilled the goose for about 6 minutes or so per side, and then ladled what he calls an "easy to make" fragrant orange and balsamic sauce over the meat.

Goose is dark, juicy and can be full of fat, which means it's quite rich, so the acid of the citrus sauce provides a nice balance. Typically though, the bird is roasted, and this recipe for a succulent Christmas goose will have you feeling like the Cratchit family after a call from Ebenezer Scrooge.

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• Prime Minister Stephen Harper gets a prorogue while Kim Honey cooks a goose ... parallels?
  
• Do you have bad allergies that keep restaurants from being a dream? Try calling ahead and getting a specially prepared menu.
• Gord Stimmel tastes newly released pricey single-malts, port, and wine for the holiday season.
• Recipes: Orange Polenta Cookies and Aztec Cookies

As one chef put it, "We're going to paint the town with foie gras."

Um, that might be taking it a little far, but okay.

After just over a year of the law that banned restaurants from serving foie gras, the city of Chicago has done an about-face, making the fatty liver of ducks and geese available to diners. Many parties are involved with the issue of serving foie gras in Chicago restaurants, from animal rights activists to restaurant owners to foie gras producers, and even to those interested in the political process in Chicago's city administration.

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Wine blogger Dr. Vino has a fascinating, insightful account of a tour he took of a foie gras producer in France's Dordogne region last month. Now before anyone jumps down my throat, let me say that I've had the pleasure of eating foie gras only once or twice. And in all honesty I'm a bit conflicted as to whether force feeding geese in order to fatten their livers is indeed cruel or, rather, as some have told me, a process for which they greedily line up.

It remains to be seen whether I'll ever tour a foie gras operation, but one thing I do know is that the good doctor had the nerve and intellectual curiousity to tour one such farm while the rest of his family opted for a swim. Among the issues Dr. Vino raises are the relatively pleasant conditions the geese enjoy while they are outside in two large fields as opposed to the darkened gavage barns where they are force-fed four times daily. Even he seems uncertain as to just how cruel the process is. But in the end he concludes that it's probably best for all to know where their food comes from, foie gras or otherwise.

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Turducken is a chicken stuffed in a duck stuffed in a turkey and is becoming more and more popular at the holiday table. The layers are often rounded out with a hearty measure of stuffing, so it's not a roast for the faint of appetite. But what do you call an 18-pound turkey stuffed with 9 other birds? For now, it's simply called a ten bird roast or, as chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall proclaimed it,  "one of the most spectacular and delicious roasts you can lay before your loved ones at Yuletide".
Apparently, the roast has its roots in medieval traditions as well as in an early 19th century French tradition of having a feast with 17 kinds of birds. The turkey is stuffed with goose, duck, mallard, guinea fowl, chicken, pheasant, partridge, pigeon and woodcock (go-du-ma-gu-chi-phea-par-pige-ock?) and carries a £160 price tag (about $277). It, like the turducken, also contains a fair amount of sausage, bacon and stuffing. Another roast gaining popularity is the unfortunately named "gooducken" - a goose stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken.