St. Martin’s Day- Austria’s kind-of-version of Thanksgiving, where, instead of giving thanks due to Native Americans helping Austrian pilgrims navigate through their first harsh year in the New World, we slaughter and eat geese as an act of revenge because in 397, St. Martin, a former Roman soldier who was then baptized and became a bishop in a French town, was hiding in a pen of geese and then outed by them to the townsfolk looking for him. So, as a remembrance for that act of betrayal, we roast and eat geese for half of November!
A little morbid, sure, but then again, as a famous poet once wrote, “If death were a person, they’d be Viennese.” So, we’re kind of known for being morbid and weird with our traditions. See: Krampus.
This year, due to a pesky little thing called the pandemic raging across the world named COVID-19, all restaurants had to shut down again for a second time, so my husband and I couldn’t pay anyone to roast the goose for us this year (but if you’re looking for a restaurant recommendation, I highly suggest Plachutta’s Grünspan Restaurant in the 16th district- AMAZING goose!) I decided to do it myself!
First up, buying the goose. This was relatively easy, as every supermarket in Vienna stocks them. Ours was from the local Spar and cost about €25 for a 3kg goose (that was enough for almost four people- my husband, me, our 2-year-old daughter, and our 10 month old who crawls at lightning speed from wherever she’s currently perched eating the leaves off my potted plants, to the dining room table, demanding whatever we’re currently eating, so my 2-year old finally begins throwing her food scraps down on the floor, where the baby then gobbles them up).
Next up: The Recipe!
I decided to venture into the dark, convoluted, but sophisticated territory of the only person I trust when it comes to cooking French food (besides Remy from Ratatouille) : American goddess Julia Child.
First order of business here was erasing the pencil marks all over the cover, courtesy of my toddler, so I could get a good Instragram-y picture.
Second order of business was googling, “Cheap alternative to cognac?” after hallucinating at the cost of cognac at Spar. The answer: Brandy. You’re welcome.
Third order of business was remembering that all of Julia Child’s recipes are amazing and come out wonderful but take approximately eighteen years from start to finish.
Case in point: not only are you supposed to find 40-50 tenderized prunes (??) but you are also supposed to make your own foie gras out of the innards of your goose, and then STUFF THE PRUNES WITH THEM!!
After frantically returning to my dear friend Google, and searching everywhere for “Jamie Oliver 15 Minute Meals Roasted Goose” and coming up short again and again, I finally found a quicker and easier goose stuffing in the Julia Child cookbook.
The next order of business, was sewing the vent of the bird shut. Or skewing it. The vent?! See the bottom of the recipe. This part confused me because where was I supposed to get a sewing needle big enough for a goose? I can’t imagine being a doctor because you have to give people stitches, and now I was being asked to sew the bottom of this goose shut? I decided to go with Option B which was skewering the vent shut. I bought some skewers at Spar, promptly misplaced them, and then ripped the mermaid stickers off my daughter’s old birthday cupcake toppers, and then used the toothpicks from those to close the bird.
And after all that, I have to tell you, dear reader: THE GOOSE WAS AMAZING!
For fans of the Office, this may be frightening to hear, but the older I get the more I realize how much I have in common with Dwight Schrute. I know, PLEASE don’t judge me.
But, I recently rewatched an episode where he comes into the office with a dead goose, and he tells everyone that a goose gives off so much goose grease which you can use for everything, and you save money because goose grease from the grocery store is really expensive. And he’s right! Goose fat is SUPER expensive! And this goose dripped so much lovely goose fat that I was able to fill up a large mason jar at the end, and I used it instead of olive oil for almost two weeks on every kind of dish imaginable- scrambled eggs, potatoes, you name it, goose grease was involved!
Usually a traditional Austrian goose is served with red cabbage and potato dumplings, but after basically performing surgery on this bird and violating it in a number of ways, I didn’t have the energy for any side dishes. But if you WERE to do a real “Martinigansl” dinner, as we call it, you’d serve it with red cabbage (which you can buy frozen from Igloo) and the potato dumplings (which you can buy from a box).
So, thanks Julia! As usual, you totally delivered!
Bon Appetit!
