It’s a Hot, Goose-Fat Winter

Goose fat: the French say it’s fine.

In America, we gave up goose for chicken. I’m looking back to the shtetl, and to France

On a recent visit to Paris, my father-in-law, like many French, chose to begin the conversation by highlighting America’s obesity epidemic. Thinness is an inextinguishable point of pride for the French. When I asked exactly what it was that kept the French thin, he didn’t even hesitate.

“It’s all of the goose fat,” he said with an almost unsettling ease.

I obviously took in this information with an enormous grain of salt (and still do—France is statistically getting fatter), but my father-in-law has an interesting take. Goose fat is delicious, and I don’t think it’s something that we use enough of. It’s complex, almost a little bit sweet and I don’t find it nearly as overwhelming as other animal fats. Some French scientists, at least, argue that it’s a “good” fat (the French also give wine to children). But I don’t see it used very much these days: and I know, having grown up in New England, schmaltz—rendered poultry fat—is systematically chicken fat.

Let’s talk about schmaltz for a second. In Eastern European Jewish cooking, the goose was king. Rendered goose fat was the basis for cooking, and it was the same for early Ashkenazi immigrants to America. It was over time replaced by chicken fat, oil and butter. Mostly, geese fell out of favor compared to chicken. (This is still true today, we’re not huge goose meat consumers in the U.S.) In France, however—and nothing to do with the Jews—both goose and duck fat are still widely used for potato dishes, cassoulet, confit and lentils.

What I see here is an intersection between Jewish and French cooking. On both sides, there’s an appreciation for this gorgeous fat that’s both subtle and heavy at the same time. But on the American-Jewish side, at least, it’s disappearing (if it hasn’t already disappeared). So here I am, in my home kitchen, bringing it back. Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be featuring both classic and modern Jewish recipes that either introduce or reintroduce goose fat as the core ingredient.

And if I lose any weight—which is extremely unlikely—I’ll let my father-in-law know.