SOME HISTORY

In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens wrote that in the poor Cratchit household, "you might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of course -- and in truth it was something very like it in that house." In Victorian England, having goose for Christmas dinner was both an established tradition and a rare pleasure, but did the Cratchits know how far back the symbolism went?

Here are some examples from history of the symbolism of the goose in human cultures:

• The goose was the sacred animal and symbol of the Egyptian god, Amen. Amen became the greatest of all the Egyptian gods by Dynasty XVIII and was believed to have been the source of all creation.
  
  
• About 389BC, a flock of geese sacred to Jupiter, Juno and Minerva, the gods of Rome, saved the Roman citadel by alerting sleeping Roman defenders to a stealth attack by the Gauls. Had the geese not raised the alarm, the history of the Roman empire might have ended then.
  
  
• The Jewish feast of Chanukah (Hanukkah), also known as the Feast of the Maccabees, is traditionally roast goose. The celebration commemorates the return of the temple in Jerusalem from Syrian to Jewish hands in about 165.
  
  
• Saint Martin of Tours, one of the best known Catholic Saints, is the patron saint against poverty and of, among other things, beggars and geese. Legend has it that he tore his cloak in half in order to give half of it to a beggar: the cloak was later miraculously restored. Later, he hid in a barn full of geese to avoid being made a Bishop, but the geese gave him away with their clamor. He died in about 367. Saint Martin's day is celebrated on November 11, and goose is the traditional fare on that day (Martinmas goose). If you see a painting of Saint Martin, he may well be accompanied by a goose.
  
  
• Though goose is still a popular choice for Christmas dinner in some places, Dickens may have started something new when he had Scrooge give the Cratchits, not a goose, but a turkey: "... a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped them short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax."
  
  
• The goose has a moral message in the famous Aesop's fable, "The Goose That laid the Golden Egg:" if you let your greed get out of control, you may lose everything.
  
  


SOURCE : Suite 101.com






• Geese were a major source of meat for country folk and farmers in Britain who made good use of common land for their geese to graze until this common land was enclosed by landowners and the farmers saw their grazing land disappear along with their ability to raise geese.
  
  
• Traditionally, the Michaelmas Goose would be lighter than the Christmas Goose because they had be fed solely on grass, hence earning the nickname "Green Geese".
  
  
• The Nottingham Goose Fair dates back to 1284 and is still held every October.
  
  

SOME GEESE FACTS

• Geese belong to the order Anseriformes, which includes all sorts of waterfowl.
  
  
• Unlike other poultry, which can be reared all year round, Goose production still follows a traditional pattern - hatched in spring, fattened in summer and eaten in autumn and winter.
  
  
• 2007 saw UK Goose consumption rise to a record 300,000 birds. (Defra)
  
  
  

SOME TRIVIA

The "goose bumps" effect gets its name from geese. Goose feathers grow from stores in the epidermis which resemble human follicles. When a goose's feathers are plucked, its skin has protrusions where the feathers were, and it is these bumps which the human phenomenon resemble.

The "goose-step" is a special marching step usually performed in formal military parades and other ceremonies. While marching in parade formation, troops swing their legs in unison to a nearly horizontally position while keeping their knees locked.