St Martin’s, or Martinmas, is particularly popular with German children: in kindergardens, infant schools and at home we make paper lanterns to use for the processions that take place on the evening of November 11. This is followed by a family dinner revolving around a roast goose, which is the point where adults start enjoying it, too. Although I am – like many of my countrymen and -women – not a practising Christian, certain feast days are so ingrained into our lives that I could not imagine a life without the traditions and foods that come with them. Martinmas is one of these celebrations, and as it marks the beginning of my favourite time of the year, Advent, I would like to invite you to celebrate the day with us. Before we get to the fun bit, food, we have to make lanterns. We made ours this year a weak earlier than usual, simply because my friend C the arts teacher came to visit, and who better to supervise the madness of children doing crafts than the expert: How I do admire those immaculately styled homes you see in magazines or on other people’s blogs! Our own style seems to be heavily influenced by the Notting Hill Carnival and by some unspecific war-zone. But after many tantrums and tears, the finished lanterns looked quite magnificent in the evening breeze: St Martin was a Roman soldier who, according to the legend, cut his cloak into two to give half of it to a beggar who was suffering in the freezing temperatures. That night Martin had a dream in which he saw Jesus wearing the piece of the cloak he had given to the beggar, and when he woke up the cloak had been restored. Martin later became bishop and even saint, and he is revered as the patron saint of beggars, as well as a patron of children. The tradition to eat a goose has several explanations: according to the legend, St Martin was hiding in a stable to escape from the messengers of the church, who wanted to elect him as bishop; a flock of geese gave him away. But more likely the feast of St Martin, which marks the end of the autumn harvest and the beginning of the period of fasting leading up to Christmas, can be seen as a thanksgiving feast before the fasting period leading up to Christmas. Geese have by this this point reached a decent weight and make for an excellent feast! Goose is the traditional Christmas dish in many European countries, including Germany. In Britain and the United States, however, the traditional Christmas goose has been replaced by turkey: not only is it a bigger bird, it is much less fatty than a goose. In fact, half of the work involved in preparing a roast goose involves getting rid of the fat, which oozes out of every pore. It’s incredible. Fortunately, goose fat is a delicacy in itself, and our dinner today yielded almost a pint of pure goose fat, which we might – or might not – give away as Christmas presents for foodie friends, who will use it to give their roast potatoes and vegetables an extra oomph. Although you can stuff a goose as you would a turkey, with chestnuts, bread, or even potatoes, I went for a very simple version by simply filling the cavity with sour cooking apples. I served with very traditional German side dishes: braised red cabbage and bread dumplings, the latter being quite similar to the kind of stuffing most of you would be familiar with from their own traditional Christmas dinners. I’ll be posting the recipes over the next week or so, in case I got you interested. Remember the cries ‘Hurrah! There’s such s goose!’ that rang around Bob Cratchit’s house in Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’? The goose was used by Dickens to hint at the poverty of the Cratchit’s, who could not afford the luxury of a much bigger turkey. The goose’s flavour, however, is much superior: not only does goose not become as dry as turkey often does, its meat has a deep, intensive gamey flavour. So don’t be put off by the fat-fighting and give it a try, as this is your chance to try out something new – or old, rather – this Christmas! ‘There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked. It’s tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness were the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed as Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of bone upon the dish), “they hadn’t ate it all at last!”‘

Roast Goose (for a 10lb goose, to serve 6)

(De-frosting: 1 1/2 days; preparation: 40 minutes; cooking: ca. 4 hours; resting: 30 minutes)

• 1 goose, ca. 10lb
• 4 baking apples, de-cored and cut into eighths
• 1/2 bunch of fresh parsley, flat-leaved or curly, chopped
• 2 tsp dried majoran
• 1 onion, coarsly chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1/2 celeriac, peeled and coarsely chopped
• 1 leek, washed and coarsely chopped
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg, freshly ground
• salt and pepper

Preparing the goose depends very much on your butcher: if you buy it frozen, it takes around 36 hours to defrost, either in the fridge or in another cool place. Leave it in the packaging so it doesn’t dry out. Remove the goose from the fridge around half an hour before you’re going to cook it to allow it to get to room temperature. Start by removing the giblets from the cavity and set aside. Don’t worry, they come in a little bag. Obviously they don’t grow like that, but the butcher, knowing that you might feel a bit queasy about them, has wrapped them up nicely for you. If your goose still has a neck, you’ll need to cut it off as close to the trunk as possible; most geese have this already done to them, so don’t worry about this, either. All you’re usually left with is fat removal. And this is how it goes: Your first operation is to remove the layers of fat from the inside of the goose: they come off just by pulling them, so no worries. The nest operation is slightly more demanding: you need to cut off the tail (which is incidentally called the ‘Pope’s nose’ in English): right above it is a little bubble, like a pimple, which contains fat. Loads of it. You need to cut off that whole bit without cutting into that fat gland. I watched a video that demonstrates all the steps – don’t be put off by the fact it’s in German as you just want to watch what he’s doing. Once you’ve cut off the tail, you cut off the end half of the wings, too, for good measure. Heat your oven to 180C – apparently the fan-assisted mode doesn’t work quite as well for roasting as a normal oven, but I can’t really vouch for that one. Now the stuffing begins. Wash the bird with cold water, inside and outside, and rub a generous amount of salt into both the inside and outside. Fill the bird with the apples, 1/2 the parsley. 1/2 the majoran, nutmeg and some pepper and close the cavity, using toothpicks and string: take a look at Marta’s tutorial on Plate du Jour to see how it’s done! Place the bird with the chest down into an oven tray and fill this with ca 1/2 inch of cold water. Place it in the oven for around 2 hours, occasionally pouring some of the liquid over the goose.

For the perfect gravy: stomach, liver, heart, neck and wings.

Now you’re left with the giblets, the tips of the wings and the neck. You can either dump them straightaway, in their little plastic bag, feeling really disgusted etc., or quickly rinse them, throw them into a small pan, cover them with water and bring it all to boil. They’ll make an excellent base for your gravy as well as adding flavour to your goose fat. And the good thing is: you don’t even have to touch or look at them ever again! Once the water is boiling, add 1/3 of the remaining vegetables and onion, as well as some salt and pepper, and let it simmer for an hour or so. After two hours, you might want to start removing some of the excess fat your goose has been sweating out. Pour it into a heat-resistant jug, then add the remaining vegetables into the tray and bake your bird for another hour or so. In the meantime, you can start extracting the fat: I sieved the juices from the roasting tray as well as the liquid from the boiled giblets into empty jam jars, to demonstrate how much fat will separate from the juices if you let them stand for around 5 minutes; it’s insane: the juices from the tray can be almost 50:50! You don’t need jam jars, any heat-resistant jug etc. will do. Spoon off the fat into clean lidded containers (I cleaned the jars and sterilised them by leaving them in the oven with the goose for around 20 minutes), close the lids and leave them to cool. The fat will harden overnight and turn white. Keep the remaining juices for your gravy.

Picture by Nicole, of TooFoodToBeTrue.worpress.com

When the hour is up it is time to turn the bird on its back; put it back in the oven for another hour but remove excess fat from the tray and separate it as above. Keep basting the goose regularly with the juices. If the skin is not brown enough, raise the temperature to 200C for the last half hour. When the time is up, check the goose if it is done: cut into a fleshy part and check if the meat is cooked through. Then lift the bird onto your serving platter and cover it with baking foil to keep it warm. For the gravy, mix 1tbs butter with 1 tbs flour until you get a small ball. Bring to boil ca. 250ml of your de-fatted liquid; when it boils, add the flour-and-butter ball and keep stirring until it dissolves. Once the gravy thickens, remove it from the heat. Season with salt and pepper and serve alongside the goose. You will be surprised at the dark colour and the intense gamey flavour of the meat, and if you’re used to turkey you’ll appreciate its tenderness. Serve it with mashed potatoes and steamed apple, as Mrs Cratchit does in ‘A Christmas Carol’, or with the red cabbage and dumplings that you would have at St Martin’s day in many German families. I hope you enjoyed yet another meat-fest on my blog, but as I mentioned before, traditionally this feast would be followed by a period of fasting, leading up to Christmas. But don’t you worry: the longest I’ve ever stuck to a diet was 4 hours. I fainted, would you believe, and have never tried it again. But with only 40 days left to Christmas, the important question is: how ready are you? Have you bought the presents, written the cards – decked the halls, even?! I’m not having any of it, yet. It’s still only St Martin’s, and 40 days is plenty of time.