St. Martin’s Day is a popular day in Austria. On November 11 and about two weeks around this day we celebrate the Roman Saint by eating goose. St. Martin was a soldier who later became a Christian martyr and somewhere in this process he got warned by some quacking geese of approaching danger. As we Austrians are nothing but traditional we eat goose on this day without fail, never mind that the breast is dry and everything else is really greasy. We also let the children walk around with self-made paper lanterns singing special lantern songs. As the goose days are drawing to an end, I want to let you know that goose and goose is not the same and it takes specialists to do these animals justice.
Last Saturday I was invited at Andrea’s place for their traditional goose feast! There the goose was not merely roasted in the oven, no, there the goose was roasted on a motorized goose spit in the garden.
But since this was a feast, we were not merely eating goose. We were eating everything around the goose.
So the first course of the evening was goose liver roasted with apples. Eaten directly out of the pan with a slice of self-made bread. Heavenly bliss!
The rest of the apples and the fat were then doused with Calvados, seasoned and soaked up with more bread!
Second course was goose soup, clear not thickened by roux. Lots and lots of small pieces of meat, liver, and root vegetables were inside. Making it one hot-pot of more bliss. I had to ask for a second helping since it was so good. And as you know by now, when it is very good there is no picture.
Hence it was even better that the goose was not ready for a while. We used the time to work up more appetite and also check occasionally on how the Austrian Football Team was playing against Russia (we won in case you are interested). A good hour later we were ready for the main course!
And that’s how far my pictures go. We ate the goose with two types of potato dumplings and two types of red cabbage. The goose was moist and juicy and perfectly seasoned, stuffed with apples and onions. I had only the tiniest bit of a second helping since I felt already near over-stuffing. I really, really couldn’t go on anymore and I had to forgo dessert. It was perfection!
Yours, Pollybert
PS: Since Andrea works with me she brought the left-overs to work and I enjoyed some for lunch.
