Poultry To Boil a Goose

to boil a goose

(from Godey's Ladies Magazine, edited by L.A. Godey, Sarah J. Hale, 1866)

Ingredients:

bread crumbs​

pepper & salt​

butter​

2 onions, optional​

sage​

​

serve with giblet sauce​

Instructions:

After it is well dressed, singe it thoroughly. Have aready dressing prepared of bread crumbs, seasoned with pepper, salt and butter, with the addition of two finely chopped onions, a little sage, and more pepper than would be used for turkey. Fill the body and close it firmly; put it in cold water, and boil it gently an hour, if tender; if not longer; serve with giblet sauce. The onion can be omitted if not relished.​

Who knew this feast for the feminine eye, " Godey's " enticingly scrolled amidst floral offerings promising romance, fashion and enough estrogen laced occupations to drain testosterone from any man unfortunate enough to open one issue, would also awaken a kind of cold blooded cook in our heaving bosoms?

​

If men knew what lay between these covers we still would not be voting. Cooking, ladies, was not for the faint hearted or the soft hearted, believe me. Steely-eyed women capable of bayoneting geese for the sake of a praiseworthy dinner hysterically pepper our ancestry. I'm sorry, they just do.

Posting the link for the sake of Public Domain Cookery everywhere and charming recipes, posting the long-dead and boiled goose for the sake of those he left behind. Anyone interested in era recipes could take a flour bath in Annie Frost's collection.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=hvd.rsmcx9;view=1up;seq=5

 

[GS]

My mother would kill, pluck, singe, roast... a hen which had been running free in the sunshine minutes earlier. The hen would have been a chick I had nurtured as a pet from its fuzzy state, given a name, and hand fed it corn. I never liked her chicken, not roasted nor fried, and can still smell the fresh-slaughtered, raw musky scent when I remember those days. Thus, I am mostly a vegetarian today.

 

[donna]

My Granny raised chickens. She had most of them for her egg business. She sold to local grocery stores in Lexington, Ky. She and my Dad, then young, also showed different chickens and other fowl at Four H, Future Farmers of America and the Ky. State Fair. She also showed her eggs at state fair. They won many ribbons. For Four H and Future Farmers it was my Dad who showed.

She did kill the occasion chicken for dinner. I never watched her. But the prepared chickens were delicious, whether, fried, roasted or baked.

 

[nitrofd]

My Granny raised chickens. She had most of them for her egg business. She sold to local grocery stores in Lexington, Ky. She and my Dad, then young, also showed different chickens and other fowl at Four H, Future Farmers of America and the Ky. State Fair. She also showed her eggs at state fair. They won many ribbons. For Four H and Future Farmers it was my Dad who showed.

She did kill the occasion chicken for dinner. I never watched her. But the prepared chickens were delicious, whether, fried, roasted or baked.

The food forum has posted many recipes from this book.

 

[WJC]

My mother would kill, pluck, singe, roast... a hen which had been running free in the sunshine minutes earlier. The hen would have been a chick I had nurtured as a pet from its fuzzy state, given a name, and hand fed it corn. I never liked her chicken, not roasted nor fried, and can still smell the fresh-slaughtered, raw musky scent when I remember those days. Thus, I am mostly a vegetarian today.

As a boy spending my summers on my Grandparents' farm, I've fed, curried and petted cattle. And I've eaten them, including one mighty Hereford bull named for me. I've fed chickens, collected their eggs and- one one occasion- killed one for Sunday chicken and noodles (the real kind) dinner.
Frankly, I botched the 'execution' so badly I think my Grandmother decided not to let me do the task again.
Except for seafood, my wife refuses to eat anything she has earlier seen alive. (Although one of our funniest moments was when she was cooking crawfish in a pot of boiling water. They would crawl out as quickly as she put them in. They sure tasted good....)

 

[NH Civil War Gal]

The cover of the book is at least a "feast" for the eyes!

 

[Mrs. V]

My Mom talks about Sunday chicken dinner on the farm..and the whole process. I could not do the slaughtering. Too wimpy.

My Grandmother used to tell a story about her pet chicken. She had been laying in the sun and had fallen asleep. If her pet chicken had not set up a huge racket, she would have had heat stroke..I do believe that chicken died of natural causes.

 

[donna]

Bumping for St. Michael Day, also Goose Day. How about preparing goose today.