Christmas is coming, and the goose is getting fat.
Except it isn’t. It’s sulking over in the corner of the farmyard with a group of emo ducks.
Christmas is all about turkey: flash, loud, American turkey, come over here to steal our hens with his bawdy drawl, milk chocolate and nylons. Oh, how he loves the attention: “Look at his wattle!”; “What strong legs he has!”; “His plumage is dreeeeeamy!” But he knows it won’t last. Soon enough, when the boxing day hams have taken centre stage and the sofa companies are announcing their 12 month run of one day only sales, he will be little more than a fading memory, consigned to a fate of school dinner twizzlers and booootiful turkey ham.
Soon the proud goose will once more hold court as he waddles his web footed way around the farmyard, so easily forgetting his former friends who now once again paddle disconsolately in the duck pond listening to vintage the Cure.
Old goose is fine. His bill is pushed out but temporarily, and besides, his name will always be synonymous with luxury: foie gras and comfortable pillows. Turkey, however, is a mere flash in the pan (or one hour in the oven at gas mark 5, plus 25 minutes per kilo), forever associated with seasonal festivities and salmonella enterocolitis. Sure, he overplays his role for those few weeks at the end of each year, but who could blame him? For once the snow has cleared along with the indigestion, when the disappointing TV specials have been replaced by the same old same old, when that dusty bottle of cream sherry has been shoved to the back of the cupboard for another year, nobody cares. It’s all about the chicken.
How fickle we are with our faddy food ways. It is time, my dear friends, to offer an outstretched arm of affection and embrace our New World cousin. Welcome him to our homes and hearts for more than just a Christmas; show him that his time in our great nation can be so much more than just a short, sharp end at the hands of a man named Bernard.
