Wild Goose
If young, cook on the spit. Or split down the back, sear over hot coals, and finish broiling over a slower fire since the outside of a big young gander otherwise would be scorched before the inside is ready. By this last method you are carrying out the ancient English method which has come down to us in the folk saying, "It hisses like a goose on the grill." The skin will have a rich gamey flavor. When wild geese were plentiful, the old American way with young ones was to fry them like big chickens, and with old ones to fricassee them in the big iron pot. Old ones may be stuffed and roasted in the oven or pot roasted in a big Dutch oven, like domestic geese. Pin a thick slice of salt pork over the breast, as for all wild birds.
The original gives methods rather than numbers, which is normal for camp cookery of this kind. The points below supply the temperatures, times and judgements a modern cook needs.
- The hinge: breast and legs want different treatmentWild goose breast is lean, dark and dries out past medium-rare; pull it at 130-135F internal and rest it. The legs and thighs are full of connective tissue and are only good after long moist cooking, so many cooks now separate the bird and broil the breast while braising the legs.
- Young versus oldThe recipe turns on this distinction. A young bird has a pliable, easily bent breastbone tip and soft feet; an old one is stiff and hard-billed. Only young birds are worth spit-roasting or broiling. Older birds, as the recipe says, go to the fricassee, the pot roast, or stuffed and roasted in the oven.
- Searing then finishingThe two-fire technique is a spot-on description of two-zone grilling. Build a hot bed of coals on one side and leave the other side empty; sear the split bird skin-side down over the coals, then move it to the cool side, cover, and finish by indirect heat.
- Oven temperaturesThe recipe gives none. For a stuffed and roasted old bird, around 325F, allowing roughly 20-25 minutes per pound, is a reasonable modern equivalent; a Dutch oven pot roast wants roughly 300-325F with liquid, 2 1/2 to 3 hours until the meat gives.
- Salt porkThe thick slice pinned over the breast is barding, and it matters because a wild goose is far leaner than a domestic one. Blanched slab bacon or fatback works; ordinary streaky bacon tends to burn before it has done its job.
- Frying a whole goose"Fry them like big chickens" means jointing the bird and pan-frying the pieces in fat in a heavy skillet, not deep-frying a whole goose. Breast pieces need only a few minutes a side.
- Shot and guttingCheck the meat for pellets before cooking, and discard any deeply bruised, blood-shot flesh. If lead shot was used, cut generously around the wound channels.
- YieldCanada geese vary widely by subspecies; a good-sized one dressed will feed roughly four to six, while a snow goose or smaller species feeds two to three.
Wild goose sat in the ordinary American larder for as long as market hunting lasted, which is why the writer speaks of a time "when wild geese were plentiful" in the past tense: the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 ended commercial sale of waterfowl in the United States, and geese passed from the butcher's counter to the hunter's kitchen. The two treatments named here are the standard pair for any game bird of uncertain age, roasting or broiling for the tender young and the long fricassee in the iron pot for the tough old. The folk saying about a goose on the grill traces a campfire method back to a supposed old English practice; treat it as traditional rather than documented. The salt pork over the breast is the practical heart of the entry, and a reminder that wild waterfowl, for all the fat associated with farmyard geese, is lean meat that needs help.