I never intended to allow the giant Canada goose to become a fixture in my life. The very fact of finding myself writing that last sentence is almost absurd.For a long time I was known as 'the deer guy' but over the past year or so I've probably become more known for my advocacy of using nuisance geese as food than I am for teaching people to hunt deer for food. Through events with various Slow Food chapters, articles on my blog, and most recently an appearance filmed for 'The Perennial Plate' I've become very involved with the promotion of goose hunting for both ecological and culinary reasons.
A little over a week ago I had the pleasure of appearing as a guest on The Perennial Plate with host Daniel Klein for an episode that probably won't be ready for broadcast for another month or two. Daniel was a pleasure to work with both during the hunt and after. He stalked in on the geese with me (we were jump-shooting) without spooking them off and later he deftly carved off the meat from one goose in less time that it would take me to remove a single drumstick. The man is a real professional.
I suggested to Daniel that we grind all of the meat from two of the three geese we bagged into goose burgers. What better way to prove the concept of geese as simple, fast cuisine?
We plucked the geese (I saved the down for pillows) and had them butchered within about an hour and a half. The meat was sliced off in rich, red strips and run through an inexpensive meat grinder provided by our hosts at the Glass House Winery where we were hunting and cooking. Plenty of the silky-smooth goose fat made it into the grinder as well, along with a single egg and about half a stick of butter.
After producing the raw material I left Daniel to work his magic as a professional chef. He served these large, thick burgers very simply with only a bit of pan-wilted greens, sliced tomato and a touch of mustard.
As you will see when the episode airs, they looked incredible. More importantly, these were probably the best hamburgers I have ever eaten in my entire life. This is literally true. They tasted especially good paired with Glass House's 'Cvillian' red table wine. It is always a special thing to eat goose meat that was fattened on the same grapes of which the wine is made.
Understand that geese consist of red meat. The meat has much more in common with beef than it does with chicken. Imagine beef with a finer-grained texture, less of a beefy taste, with a softer and more flavorful fat.
Every time I have the opportunity to work with another chef on wild geese that I've hunted and shot, I find myself more and more impressed with the value of this ingredient. For this and other reasons, I am now about 90% sure that my next book will be a beginner's guide to hunting geese for food. The book will focus on unconventional methods of hunting geese that are geared towards beginners, urbanites, and people who do not have the time, space or budget to hunt with a huge spread of decoys at dawn with a couple of specially trained dogs.
Meanwhile, I am willing to go anywhere to prove the value of this nuisance species as food. If governments are going to kill them anyway, lets eat them! If you represent a school, civic organization or other group that has an interest in this topic then I would be happy to travel to speak on the subject and perhaps bring a goose along to cook and serve. Being of very modest means I'll need help with transportation, lodging and other expenses, but you can be sure that I'm still cheaper than Michael Pollan.
Interested persons can contact me at jack.landers@gmail.com
[Photo copyright 2011 by Helenah Swedberg]
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