Would that be gas range, wood or coal stove, or Death Ray?
Given the grease factor, perhaps it’s best 1930s-style: press nose against butcher shop window for several seconds, shrug and go hume hungry.
Was it greasy? I read somewhere that goose meat can be greasy.
My SO was raised in Germany, and I lived there for 14 years. Thus, every Christmas Eve we prepare goose (which used to be hard to find, but now is everywhere - even in the Walmart frozen food section).
We roast it on the same roaster we use for Thanksgiving turkey…raised rack above a deep pan, so all of the fat drops to the bottom of the pan. By the time the goose is finished, there ain’t a speck of grease left on that bird. Granted, there is enough grease at the bottom of the pan to make every car in Califonia stop squeaking, but…
That said, I am not a big fan…it tastes like the dark meat of turkey, there really isn’t a lot of meat on a goose considering the size and price compared to a turkey, and not being a fan of the crusty skin, I wind up just picking a few pieces of breast and am more thrilled about the side dishes…red cabbage with cloves, and dumplings.
For my SO, it is a matter of tradition at Christmas - reminds him of his childhood and back when having a goose for Christmas Eve dinner was a special treat, an expensive treat, for the family. However, even he admits that a turkey tastes better and is better value and has many more uses for leftovers.
And I have to admit, is sure does smell good and look good when you put it on the table for dinner - too bad it just doesn’t taste as good as it looks and smells.
I agree … When the OP asks if goose is good to eat, my answer is yes, in the same sense that the sky is above the water.
You should be able to find them in a large supermarket; though I believe they are usually sold frozen rather than fresh.
It is. All birds have oily skin to help the feathers repel water; with aquatic birds this is especially true, since the oily feathers also provide buoyancy.
I think DMark has likely hit upon the real reason that goose isn’t all that popular for the American market: It’s not the grease itself, it’s that the general preference for poultry meat in the US is for white or breast meat. Goose, like duck, is all dark meat - or mostly so.
Thus, most people who go wild for chicken breasts, and think that duck tastes too strong for them won’t care for goose.
The grease is part of it, just not the only factor.
Gee, with all that body fat, you’d think geese would never freeze. 
Add into the economic equation that geese (and ducks) can’t be factory-raised using the methods developed for chickens and turkeys (pack 20 of them in a 2 foot by 2 foot wire cage and stack those cages to the ceiling) - you need more space to grow geese & ducks, so they become more expensive per pound.
My take on why goose isn’t popular in the US (all of these points have been touched on in other posts, I think):
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rarely seen in the meat case
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takes a little more effort to cook well
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after rendering out the fat during roasting, a goose or duck feeds fewer people than a chicken that was the same weight raw (and Americans are very much into Bigger is Better)
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more expensive when it is in the meat case than chicken or turkey
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misconceptions about it being greasy or gamey (it is neither if cooked properly)
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America’s love affair with white breast meat
A Canadian made the mistake of interrupting our duck hunt last Thansgiving. I chicken fried the breasts so really didn’t notice any grease, what with it cooking in oil, but it was absolutely delicious. Soemone here on the board told me that those coming down the central flyway (I’d bagged him in Colorado) fed on grain along the way and were much tastier than those migrating further to the east where they’d feed on weeds and grasses. Made sense.
Look, I know you loved the South Park movie, but when they sang, “Blame Canada,” you weren’t supposed to rush out and start gunning them down willy-nilly!
Greece.
Any vague memories of how it was prepared? I, too, have never had goose and have always wanted to try it.
I recently bought and cooked a goose for Christmas just to try something different. You can get them frozen up here, no problem. It tasted a lot like turkey, I thought.
But if anyone wants to try it, I have to warn you, it’s really REALLY greasy. You have to puncture the skin while it;s roasting and then periodically spoon the drippings out of the roasting pan. If you don’t do that the grease will actually fill up the pan.
Goose grease is good on popcorn, FYI.
Goose fat is an essential element, possibly the defining element of Perigord (Dordogne) French cooking. This is, I think, due to it being outside the olive-oil belt that characterises Mediterranean cuisine. For instance, chunks of goose preserved in their own rendered fat (confit d’oie) are a regional delicacy. As is fat goose liver (foie gras). A cooking show I’ve seen on the region showed a proper cassoulet d’oie being prepared, then served with bread slathered in the left-over fat from the confit.
Well when I had one once, in 1960…
It was fairly straightforward. I don’t remember the exact times and temperatures, but there was little more to it than salt and pepper and then roast. I didn’t add butter or any additional fat. The only complication was that it had to be set up on a grill with a catch pan underneath to collect all the rendered fat. Every half hour or so, I took it out to empty the catch pan. Pretty simple. I made a relish separately to go with it.
Ack! Just seeing this (even in a negatory sense) has furred up my arteries on the spot… ::falls over::
It’s not exactly culturally pervasive, but bread and dripping (be it pork, beef, gooseetc, but not usually lamb, as this is too hard and waxy) has enjoyed some popularity in the UK, especially in the North; it’s declined vastly in popularity as a result of the wide use of butter and margarines, but it was once widely eaten and enjoyed.
I like it - especially goose fat - on thick fluffy white bread, with a little salt.
It is also worth noting that although animal fats are considered A Bad Thing, and the harder-setting ones worse than the soft or liquid ones, there is considerable evidence to suggest that goose and duck fats aren’t actually all that bad; there are regions in France where they enjoy the same kind of good health - apparently as a result of eating lots of duck and goose - as is proclaimed for olive oil around parts of the mediterranean.
I roasted a goose once. It was, as I think someone mentioned, very fatty. But to answer the question of why it isn’t served more often, I’d have to guess the fact the geese are big would be part of it. There’s a lot of goose on a goose, and a small family (or, as I was living alone) will take a long time to eat it all up.