"Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat" – and that's not even because he's being force fed. It's a natural part of the goose's lifecycle, almost like the bird was designed for the Christmas table.
Goslings hatch in spring, and immediately start pecking away at grass, then wheat and maize. Around nine months old, they are ready for the table. There's no marketing campaign, no media strategy behind The Christmas Goose. It is, quite simply, the right time of the year to be eating this magnificent bird.
Centuries before turkeys usurped the goose as the Christmas centrepiece, they were the bird of choice at winter solstice feasts. In medieval England, the church sold ready-cooked geese to the poor at Christmas, for the fixed price of 7 pence, or 6 pence for an uncooked goose – roughly the equivalent of a day's wage. And there's no forgetting the sheer joy that a goose brought the Cratchits in Dickens' A Christmas Carol:
"At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!"
In 1526, it's thought that Yorkshireman William Strickland was the first person to bring a turkey to the British shores, having bought it from American-Indian traders. For centuries turkeys were an almost unobtainable luxury - in the 1930s it took a week's wage to buy a turkey. In the 1950s, they became more affordable – it now takes the equivalent of 1.7 hours' work to buy a turkey – which is why it is the centrepiece of 76% of Christmas spreads in the UK.
So where does this leave the poor goose? Despite being deeply-entrenched in British history, the bird is now more closely-associated with France, where it is linked to the foie gras controversy. Geese are slowly making a culinary comeback though, as chefs look to the past for inspiration. Goose meat is darker than turkey meat, with a touch of gaminess. They are usually a little smaller than turkeys, but with average birds weighing around 5-6kg, they are still big enough to comfortably feed a family of 6-8 people.