Goose

goose a female bird whose male is a gander and whose young are goslings. In its wild form the goose (or rather geese, since the birds of several genera answer to this name) belongs to Europe, N. Africa, N. America, and C. Asia. The species to which the common domesticated goose belongs, by descent, is Anser anser, the greylag goose, still common in Europe as a wild bird.

Domestication took place late, since geese take 30 days to hatch their young and more to rear them, and that was too long for nomads. However, there are records of domesticated geese in ancient Egypt, and wall-paintings show them being crammed to enlarge their livers. They were well established by classical times, witness the well-known story of how their cackling saved the Capitol at Rome from a surprise attack in the 4th century bc. Despite this good turn, and the fact that the goose was already sacred to the goddess Juno, the Romans ate them; Pliny observed in the 2nd century AD that the goose was chiefly prized for its liver, alluded to the practice of cramming, and remarked that soaking the liver in honey and milk made it even larger. Roman breeding of geese produced a relatively small, white bird; and the Romans exported this to the areas which they conquered. Such geese are still to be seen in the Balkans and C. Europe. In France, however, the Gauls needed no encouragement from the Romans; they were already producing plump geese, fed on barley or millet gruel. It may well be that it is the French who can claim the longest and most faithful devotion to the goose; and it is they who have become the acknowledged (although not the only) experts in producing foie gras.