Roast Goose with Herb Stuffing

The story

Before turkey became the nearly universal Christmas bird of the English-speaking world, goose was for centuries the first choice for the Irish festive table: larger and fattier than a chicken, impressive enough for the most important meal of the year and, in rural areas, more practical because it was raised in the yard. A stuffing of bread, onion, sage and thyme soaks up some of the fat during roasting and becomes one of the most prized parts of the meal in its own right. Charles Dickens, in his British "A Christmas Carol," chooses a goose, not a turkey, for the humble Cratchit family. That reflects a wider British and Irish pattern of the 19th century, when goose stood for the modest yet festive Christmas dinner of ordinary people, while turkey was long the costlier, city choice. Turkey is more common in Ireland today, but families who keep the older tradition still return to goose as the more authentic, "old Irish" choice.