Hartley and Elliot
MENU
| Roast Goose | |
| Mock Venison | |
| Stewed Pumpkin | Sweet Stuffing |
| Frumenty | |
| Ale | |
Thanksgiving is just too traditional to tamper with—in my home and, I’m sure, in yours. No matter that our roast turkey, cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, and creamed onions are more Victorian than Pilgrim. We’ve grown accustomed to them, and they rest as comfortably among our memories as that Norman Rockwell painting of Grandma’s table. But Harvest Home has no traditions whatsoever, and although a week-long bacchanalia is beyond our means, a harvest supper isn’t. In an age when we crave a deeper relationship with both our past and our earth, its virtues are obvious. Harvest Home is as ecological as it is historical. It celebrates both land and man and the fruits of their labor together. This menu and its recipes are, therefore, very organic and very old, and if we violate the letter of the Pilgrims’ first feast—few of us seed our corn with fish—its spirit will still be there.
Roast Goose
To roast a goose (or any cut of meat) properly, you have to sear the outside, quickly, changing the meat’s surface sugars into crunchy brown caramel thereby creating a natural bag that seals in the fowl’s juices. Inside, the goose literally cooks itself. Outside, all you need to do is baste the skin with fat to prevent it from burning, and if you are using an open fire, regularly turn the bird so that it is heated evenly. An oven solves the latter problem, and although Englishmen had bake ovens in 1621, the Pilgrims didn’t. But a decade or so later they built them into their Plymouth fireplaces and used them regularly for roasts as well as breads. So if you don’t have an outdoor grill with a spit or a fireplace that could be converted into an open hearth, an oven will do fine. In either case cooking time will be between one and two hours, or twenty minutes to the pound. Just rub the goose all over with animal fat (bacon drippings, chicken or goose fat, or butter) and sear close to an open fire or at 450 degrees in an oven. When the skin is brown (after about twenty minutes), lower the heat by roasting your goose farther from the open fire or turning down the oven to 325 degrees. Baste regularly with the goose fat that escapes. When the legs move easily in their sockets, it is done. The result: juicy rare meat and crispy skin. Carve it roughly and let everyone eat with his hands, making sure each has a good-sized cloth napkin or dish towel. No forks—they were instruments of “Italian or French craft and subtlety” and quite unEnglish.
BOOKE OF DIVERS DEVICES (1597)