Martinmas Goose Harvest
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The goose is the noblest bird of the farmyard. As grazing waterfowl, it supplies the home kitchen with utterly unique provender. Starting with living geese, we will transform them into undiluted goods for the family table through the culinary traditions of the premodern peasant.
“The confit pot is one of the most useful storage items in the French farmhouse kitchen.” -Elisabeth Luard
With the convenience of refrigeration so widely available, we can easily ward off spoilage, at least for a little while. But this ease comes at the cost of flavor. The freezer cannot improve the meat it contains; it can only delay its inevitable demise. Older methods of preservation not only keep meat from going bad, but help it to go good. The traditions of our fathers in preserving the harvest evince thrift and extravagance in equal measure. One of these methods is confit.
Description
*Subscribe to our newsletter to be notified when we’ll offer this class again*
On the first day, you will artfully slaughter and de-feather a goose fattened on the pasture of St Martin’s Summer. This will equip you with the experience to skillfully harvest all waterfowl. As usual, the class size will be small to keep the hands-on experience undiluted. We will cure the extremities for confit, hang the geese in the cooler and enjoy cassoulet for slaughter day supper.
The second day will warm the kitchen with pots of cured goose bubbling in goose fat and stuffed goose roasting in the oven. The geese will be eviscerated cold so that we can glean all the fat for confit. Among many traditional preparations, we will dry-cure the breasts for magret séché, make liver pâté, dutifully feast upon roast goose and jar the confit for you to take home.
Barnyard geese are traditionally under the protection of St Martin of Tours who, humbly fleeing being concecrated a bishop, was flushed from his hiding place by a flock of noisy geese.
By the end of the course, you will not only have harvested the entirety of the goose, but put each part to the highest and best use.
“…the confits are really farmhouse preparations, for the protracted convenience of a single, often isolated, family.” -Jane Grigson
This is an earnest hands-on course. The goal is to impart the actual virtue of goose provender, from kill to confit. The meat and especially the fat of the goose opens up a new horizon of culinary efficiency and flavor. Potatoes cooked in the confit lard, for example, are superior not just in degree but in kind to all other potatoes preparations. The addition of goose confit to the modest pot of dried beans nobly exalts legumes to flavors seemingly beyond their nature.
Most importantly, we will cover goose cookery.
Parting Gifts
Now included with these 2-day events:
- Provided with a traveling cooler, you will go home with jars of confit goose and magret séché.
- *Lifetime access to our private Facebook page, Meatsmith Table, for class graduates and members only.*
- 7-day free trial to the Meatsmith Membership, which includes
- All Butcher’s Salt e-chapters for you to download
- Our slaughter film, To Kill A Pig Nicely
- 4+ years’ worth of harvest films, live chat archives, articles and forum dialogue
- Podcast topic & questioning priority
(The knife sharpening method that Brandon learned from is now on YouTube on the Carter Cutlery channel.)
These serve as ready refreshers of what you learn with us. They are unparalleled in American butchery educational materials because they return to the radical orthodoxy of the peasant kitchen.
*This is a 2-day harvest class at our homestead outside Tulsa, Oklahoma.*
Please ensure you read our “Student Signup Information and Policies” document. Due to quick sign-ups, traveling students and small class sizes we maintain a strict refund policy. If coming from out of state, please read our Out-of-Towners page.
Additional information
| Course Dates | November 15th-16th |
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Travis Wright (verified owner) –
I made the journey to Brandon’s homestead in November of 2024 for the Martinmas Goose Harvest class, in preparation for harvesting my geese later that month. Brandon had spoken at length during live chats and podcasts on the utility of the goose to the homestead and their extravagance on the family table, and I was excited to try my hand at raising them in 2024. I have raised and harvested meat chickens for many years here in Wisconsin, but had yet to process waterfowl of any significant quantity. The methods that we learned in class for harvest allowed me to refine my goose harvest, but also informed my chicken harvest with a few new tips. For anyone who hasn’t harvested poultry, the harvest day will be well worth the cost of admission.
I was most looking forward to how to celebrate and maximize the harvest of the goose, and we did just that during the class. After harvest, we parted the legs and thighs and started an overnight dry cure on those for confit on day 2. On day 2, along with eviscerating and parting out the goose, we cooked the hearts deliciously, made a wonderful liver pate, made confit, seared goose breast, and dined on all of the above as well as roast goose. It was utterly delicious and utterly educational, and allowed me to craft some traditions for my family around the goose harvest.
Thank you again, Brandon, for the education and inspiration!
Travis Wright