Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

I was recently on another forum and they were talking about whether or not to eat a goose someone had given them. The majority of replies were that geese taste terrible and are not worth eating no matter how you cook them. Several of the replies were to use them as bait for coyotes, etc. Do they really taste that bad and are they worth going to the trouble of dressing them if they do? I"m not looking for recipes just wondering what the consensus is among you goose hunters.

They obviously never had goose that was cooked by my former brother in law. The way he prepared the "Christmas Goose" was awesome. It was kind of funny, it was a bit greasy and reminded me of Roast Beef. He definitely did the slow cook thing, like a turkey, it took several hours and was cooked with several of the vegetables in the pan with it.

It probably depends on what they are eating as well.

We had them in ND years ago and the only way we could enjoy goose was barbecued. Not on a spit over a fire but cooked in a pot on the stove top in bbq sauce till it was tender. That way the bbq sauce covered up that strong/nasty taste.

Wild animals are wild animals. You never know what they've been eating. It's the usual reason given for not harvesting wild pigs, the meat is awful (and sometimes infected). Of course, if you take them alive and spend some time feeding them quality food ... well, store-bought pork's pretty good, eh?

The breasts are the best part IMO. Red meat just like beef but fat free so they dry out when cooking. Here's my recipe for the grill...wrap a single breast generously in bacon...add a little garlic and wrap in tin foil...grill and enjoy...

Diomed wrote:Wild animals are wild animals. You never know what they've been eating. It's the usual reason given for not harvesting wild pigs, the meat is awful (and sometimes infected). Of course, if you take them alive and spend some time feeding them quality food ... well, store-bought pork's pretty good, eh?

You must be kidding. The wild boar meat that I have brought home from hunting in Georgia and Tenn. Is better then any domestic ham that me or my family have ever paid to eat.
As far as geese go I have a buddy that eat's them all the time and seem's to enjoy the hell out of them,
Bill

There is simply nothing better than eating food that you've gotten for yourself in the wild whether it be fish game plant fungi or vegetable...

Wild game is like anything else, you like it, you don't, you develop a taste for it,etc.

I grew up eating squirrel, rabbit, grouse, quail, deer, pheasant and ground hogs. We ate some ducks and geese but after several attempts to cook it other ways/recipes we settled on barbecued as the best way to "hide" that strong taste the other animals/birds did not have.

In ND the only way to tell you had a fried jack rabbit leg was that it was just about as big as a whole cotton tail rabbit. However, in west TX, the jack rabbits were just about inedible (after a couple we stopped shooting them) while cotton tails tasted the same as they do in WV, VA, AR, IL, ND and TN (some of the places I lived growing up).

Doves? Good gosh. I went dove hunting twice. Couldn't stand the taste fried like we did quail/grouse/turkey. A friend said to try this: put the dove breasts in a pan, pour chicken and rice soup over them to cover the breasts, add some additional rice, chop up some onions and stir in, throw in a couple/three chicken bullion cubes and bake in the oven for a couple of hours. He said the doves tasted like chicken. Well, that's what we did with the doves from my second dove hunt. Good thing the dove meat didn't ruin the rice and onions because that was all that was fit to eat. Tossed those dove breasts in the trash and never went dove hunting again (I won't kill animals I don't eat - except for a couple of predators/irritators).

Maybe we should have tried to barbecue the dove breast???

weeellllll, here in VA we got whats known as a resident goose problem. they got a special season for them and everything. these particular geese dont migrate with the rest of them, they stay here and loaf and are generally a nuisance all year round. when you harvest them they are tough and nasty tasting. when you harvest a migrater you can certainly tell the difference, not so bad. as others have said they are alot like roast beef. i just stick with the ducks and dont bother with geese unless they land in my spread, i dont even carry a call for them while hunting ducks.
+1 on whoever said the breasts are where its at. breast em out and throw the rest away imo.

SgtBill wrote:You must be kidding. The wild boar meat that I have brought home from hunting in Georgia and Tenn. Is better then any domestic ham that me or my family have ever paid to eat.

Seems to vary by region. When I was researching hog hunting it seemed to be common verging on SOP to leave the animals where they fall in the deep south and Texas, with "the meat's no good" as the reason given.

zephyp wrote: Here's my recipe for the grill...wrap a single breast generously in bacon...add a little garlic and wrap in tin foil...grill and enjoy...

Well, yeah, I mean anything wrapped in bacon (or covered in cheese, for that matter) will taste great! I mean, even brussel sprouts (bleh!), though, I'm not willing to waste bacon like that.

I've fixed the breast on the grill a couple of times and it wasn't to bad. Marinated them in thousand island dressing for a day or two in the fridge ,wrapped them in foil and threw them on the grill.It's dark meat and a little greasy. But over all it filled the empty spot.

M1A4ME wrote:
Doves? Good gosh. I went dove hunting twice. Couldn't stand the taste fried like we did quail/grouse/turkey. A friend said to try this: put the dove breasts in a pan, pour chicken and rice soup over them to cover the breasts, add some additional rice, chop up some onions and stir in, throw in a couple/three chicken bullion cubes and bake in the oven for a couple of hours. He said the doves tasted like chicken. Well, that's what we did with the doves from my second dove hunt. Good thing the dove meat didn't ruin the rice and onions because that was all that was fit to eat. Tossed those dove breasts in the trash and never went dove hunting again (I won't kill animals I don't eat - except for a couple of predators/irritators).

Maybe we should have tried to barbecue the dove breast???

I've tried eating doves once and I remember loving them. What we did was just throw it over the fire and wait for it to cook. It's very oily though.

As for geese, I think people are 50-50 on them. So I suggest that you just try it yourself.