Fremont weekly freeman. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County, Ohio) 1850-1853, 1850-11-23
The EIicheaIEnas Goose.

For the following titbit we have been in
debted 10 that admirable artist in the literary
Cuisine, Mr.. William Hewitt. We find it in
Year Book of the Country-which our read
ers may find in a very neat Harperain, volume
at Taylor and Maury's
"There have been merry times Michael
mas-who would believe it Yet there have
been merry times aMichaelmas Mayors and
aldermen were then elected, and made their
bows to each other; and be sure there were
mere doings when mayors and aldermen,
were in the case. Stubble geese like the
alderman, were now in prime condition; but
being the weak, according to the proverb,
went to the wall, and thence to the kitchen
and twirled up the spit. 1t was jolly day
in old mother Church she ordered every body
that could get it to eat goose in honor Of
ST Michael and all the angels; we may sup
pose because they were not such geese as to
quarrel with their comforts in heaven at the
suggestion of Lucifer. So in church and cor
poration, in abbey and town hall, in farm and
cottage, there was universal eating of fat
geese; and nobody that ever heard of com
planned of the injunction. Queen Elizabeth
was eating her goose at the time that the
news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada
was brought to her, and no doubt she thought
the Spanards great and very green geese for
having come there, and that they would be
much greater if they ever came again.
"Ever after, Queen Bess most assidouSly
ate her gosse on Michaelmas, and, probably,
with Spanish chestnuts, as people on the
Continent do now; or, if she did not, she
would not have repented it if she had, for it is
princeIy addition. Queen Bess ate her goose
all the more assidously because it was an old
saying that if you ate your goose at Michael
mas, you would have plenty of money all the
year round-a prescription SO pleasant that
if its efficacy were at all proportioned to its
agrecabless, people would be geese, indeed, not
to comply with. How indeed, could any one
desire .pleasanter way of rep}enishing pur-
pose? Queen Bess was always dreadfully inl
want Of money, however; and as this come to
be seen, and not the less to be felt BY
those who had thes taxes to pay, and as no
more armadas came to be defeated, people
lost all faith that Robert Southey had, when
he addressed one in a sonnet, and asking the
goose where it could have been so bravely fed
and received no answer, added of himself:
But This | know, that thou art very fine
Seasoned with sage, with onions, and port wine.
Jolly tIIlCS, butu1 III 10 GiCtlI LilSlC nav
been at Michalmas Into these, except in the
city of London, there has been made a dread |
full inroad by the Municipal Corporation re-
form act, which forbade all eating Of Michael
mas goose in corporate capacity. Driven
out of converts and corporations, yet imagine
roast goose at Michaelmas finds welcome re-
ception in many farm, gcntleman's. and other
private house. Roast pigs no longer run
about with oranges in their mouths, crying
"Come eat mel" but stubble geese really do
seem to meet you at every turn, and cackle
out invitingly that pathetic request. AT
markets aud Poulterers they crowd upon you
in lanes and upon commons they nibble at
your heels, and hiss to inform you that they
are fa: and foolish, and beg YOU to introduce
them to sage. They stand in focks at
stubblefeld gates, aud look inploringly; every
where you are called on to note that they are
no longer green, but have grown grey and
coTpulent, and have but one earthly desire
left, and that is-to be done brown. There
is no resisting tais. The Mchaelmas goose
will find a warm reception wherever it goes,
to the end of the world