Hold the Turkey -- Nothing's Tame About the Taste of Wild Goose

A few days later, you settle down with a stool and a trash can on the back porch and pull out the feathers by hand, then cut off the wings and feet, scorch the pinfeathers out with a torch and run the carcass under cold water while you pluck off any remaining imperfections.

Your goose now is ready for the pan. But how to cook it?

"Oh, no!" I can hear Jeff Nicklason groaning all the way from Marlow Heights, where he's reading this on his computer. "You're not going to give us that goose recipe again?" Oh, yes I am, Jeffrey.

Wild birds are not like farm-raised ones, you see. They have to get their food the old-fashioned way, so they fly and walk and peck and scratch and wind up lean. They are not injected with globs of fat that render them unable to walk, but melt like butter when you cook them.

To make a wild bird tender, you must add moisture, cook slowly and take pains to keep the moisture in. My goose recipe comes from an old chef at Capt. Buddy Harrison's Chesapeake House on Tilghman Island. He learned it from his mother in Mississippi, and I no longer need to write it down as it is engraved in my memory.

The ingredients are: One green pepper, a handful of celery, a few cloves of garlic, an onion, some oregano and a jigger of Jack Daniel's whiskey. Combine these ingredients in a blender, whirl it up into a bright green goo, apply the goo liberally inside and outside the goose, then cover your pan with two layers of aluminum foil and roast at 225 degrees for six hours.

The meat will fall off the bones and the sauce will be perfect just as it lies. The only danger with this recipe is that you may grow faint with pleasure, just from inhaling the fumes as the goose cooks. So be careful.

Migratory goose season is closed briefly in Maryland during the firearms season for deer, but reopens Dec. 15, leaving plenty of time to bag a few birds for Christmas dinner. It sure beats the alternatives of a store-bought ham or another dreaded farm-raised butterball.

Goose hunting seasons:

Maryland migratory geese (Eastern counties): Dec. 15-Jan. 26.

Maryland resident geese (Western counties): Nov. 26-Feb. 15.

Virginia migratory geese (Eastern counties): Nov. 17-Dec. 1; Dec. 21-Jan. 26.

Virginia resident geese (Western counties): Nov. 17-Dec. 1; Dec. 21-Feb. 15.