You Can't Buy A Goose on eBay (aka Gifting/Buying/Contemplation à la Twelve Days of Christmas)

[countessalmirena]

Well! Pluck my feathers and call me a fricassée, it's obvious that one can't buy a goose for Christmas Day roasting on eBay. eBay doesn't provide such components of Christmas dinners. (Missed opportunity?)

You can, of course, buy Lego figurines of a roast turkey or chicken drumsticks and so on, and you can buy items stuffed with goose feathers or down, or goose quills, or paintings of geese, or goose ceramics, or magazines about geese, etc., etc.

I did not actually expect to find a goose for sale on eBay. (I didn't look until just now, as I'd be a fool to state that there were no geese for sale on eBay if I hadn't checked, irrespective of how certain I was that this was the case.) But it does highlight that eBay's once-upon-a-time slogan that "Whatever it is, you can get it on eBay" is not true. It's probably less true today than it was at the time of its use.

I don't know why, but my father announced, out of the blue, just 9 or so days before Christmas that he wanted a roast goose this year. (I had already planned on roast pheasant with a chestnut and forcemeat stuffing with ruby wine and chestnut sauce, but there we are. The best-laid plans...)

I knew of John Cesters (Prahran Market) for their quality fowl and game meat, although the prices are high. Goose in Australia is considerably overpriced, anyway, at between $45-$50 per kg with the average goose weighing in at between 3.5 and 4 kg. Besides that, there's more cavity than meat! Ah well, dad wanted it... and I duly ordered the goose. There's a beautiful recipe for roasting goose the Gordon Ramsay way, using aromatic spices, oranges and lemons, along with sage, parsley and thyme. He also has an excellent suggestion for avoiding the overcooking of the breast in comparison with the legs.

But... holy chestnuts roasting on an open fire...! The goose needed to go on a rack, of course, with a deep tray beneath to catch all of the goose fat. This already effectively adds a layer in the oven. Take into account that the bird itself is LARGE, and there was no room left in the oven at all, not even for a baking tray of gingerbread. The soi-disant roast vegetables lovingly rolled in oil and a mixture of cinammon and nutmeg sat there reproachfully as I told them, "You know you're going to have to go into the frypan, don't you?"

The Twelve Days of Christmas

Much of the song The Twelve Days of Christmas features gifts of birds/game given by the "true love", presumably to fatten up the larder of the recipient so that there was plenty to eat over Twelvetide/Christmastide.

The modern-day "true love" can't buy these on eBay. Well, he could buy plastic replicas, I suppose, but plastic is so hard to roast to perfection...

In the true Christmas spirit, for each of the Twelve Days, the gifts are shown here as a metaphorical gift and as a probably not-very-serious suggestion that eBay start a poultry and game farm where they can lovingly fatten up the required birds etc., for next Christmas.

For Christmas Day, 25th December 2019 - the First Day of Christmas:

On the First Day of Christmas

                               My True Love sent to Me

A Partridge in a Pear Tree.

[countessalmirena]

For Boxing Day (aka Feast of Stephen), 26th December 2019 - the Second Day of Christmas:

On the Second Day of Christmas

                               My True Love sent to Me

Two Turtle-Doves   

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

[countessalmirena]

For today, 27th December 2019 - the Third Day of Christmas:

On the Third Day of Christmas

                               My True Love sent to Me

Three French Hens 

Two Turtle-Doves   

And a Partridge in a Pear Tree.

[maranock]

If you think that goose is overpriced here you don't know that geese take a lot longer than other fowl to raise to table size - and you have to feed them all that time. Then there is the issue of how few commercial growers of geese there are here.

I am not sure if you post is serious or not but as a farmer I hate that people always think that meat is overpriced when they don't know how little farmers get for their stock.

If you post was meant to be light hearted then, sorry about the rant.

In any case, merry Christmas and I hope you have a great new year Countess. I always enjoy your well researched and thought out posts.

[davewil1964]

So where do lords and ladies and drummers fit into the larder/menu?

[countessalmirena]

Maranock, it's light-hearted but does actually reflect my very sincere view that goose is overpriced for the quantity of meat that is on the bird. It's also overpriced in comparison with the price of goose per kg in the UK.

(For instance, I've seen organic pampered goose in the UK priced at £10 per kg, and even lower prices with frozen goose in Tesco's, for instance, at £5 per kg. A 4 kg goose ends up being an incredibly affordable £20; a 5 kg goose at £25 is still a tremendously good deal.)

In Australia, due to a number of issues, goose is a luxury item rather than an affordable bird for Christmas for most people. We didn't pay much short of $200 for our 3.65kg goose, and there was literally no meat left on the very handsome bird after everyone had had a few slices. (I had managed to stuff two oranges and three lemons into the goose's cavity, which illustrates just how much cavity there is!) I realise that the circumstances surrounding the raising and feeding of geese in Australia make it a costlier business than in the UK; for one thing, the demand for goose is not huge here.

In terms of the Australian farmers' commitment and expenses, the price is fair.

In terms of affordability for the average Australian, the price is very high.

In spite of how delicious this gamey bird is, especially with an apple and cranberry sauce (and with the citrus fruits cutting through the richness of the meat with zesty freshness), it's just not a bird we can contemplate purchasing regularly for Christmas. I think it's a real pity, and I wish there were a way to make geese more economical to raise and sell in Australia.

You're very right; there are so few commercial growers of geese in Australia. That in itself drives the price up, which hurts the potential consumer reach and therefore drives down the demand and keeps the number of commercial growers of geese low, and so goes the whole cycle.

Anwyay, back to lightheartedness - I wish you also a merry Christmastide (to cover the whole Christmas period) and sincerely say ditto, as I enjoy your posts as well.

[countessalmirena]

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@davewil1964 wrote:

So where do lords and ladies and drummers fit into the larder/menu?

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From what I've read, the birds-as-gifts only make it as far as the Seventh Day in this song. After that, presumably it's all about celebratory dancing and music - possibly to dance off the calories...? (Unless this is a cannibal's version of an original set of lyrics which feature other birds rather than lords and ladies and drummers and pipers roasting away in a giant kitchen...)

[brerrabbit585]

By time they get to them they're probably so sick from over-eating that they give them a miss.

I know someone who has a flock of geese.  I'd love some but I don't think it'd be practical in town.  I kept a couple of turkeys for a while but they ate everything green in sight and that they could reach.  All my fruit trees were stripped of leaves up to at least a metre high.  However, they tasted good!  I ate a lot of turkey that year because the neighbour who sold them to me also sold me all the young ones they reared.  She wasn't interested in doing the work required to get them into the freezer.

[countessalmirena]

Brerrabbit, does the person who has a flock of geese sell them at Christmas time?

I've never plucked a goose, but I should try doing that some time. A century or so ago, plucking poultry / game birds oneself (middle class, mostly) was par for the course. We're rather spoilt nowadays, with so much coming to us fully prepared, plucked and packaged.

[brerrabbit585]

Feed costs would be much higher at the moment due to the drought, unless you're living somewhere you can get grain for a reasonable price. I bought wheat last week and it was the same price as it's been for a couple of years but there's plenty around here.

You need good fencing for geese. One sister had them years ago and they gave them to the other sister when they moved. They wandered off a few weeks later and they thought that was the end of them but they turned up out of the blue several months later. They didn't stay for long but that's only because they weren't given the chance to stray again. 🙂

I hope you kept all the fat. Goose fat is highly prized in a lot of European communities but you probably know that already.

Ebay doesn't allow the sale of animals, and the sale of food has to meet pretty stringent rules so I'm afraid your goose is well and truly cooked.