GOOSE. 345 
GOOSE. 
“THE flesh of Goose (Anser),” declared The London Pharma- 
copeia (1696), “‘is exceedingly hard of digestion, but being 
digested nourishes well; the liver is of great nutriment; the 
grease is exceeding hot, and of thin parts, piercing, and dissolv- 
ing.” Goose-grease (Adeps anseris) got from a roasted Goose 
is highly emollient, and very useful in clysters; this readily 
proves emetic. It is chiefly, however, to the liver of Geese 
artificially fattened for its adipose enlargement (this liver being 
mixed by foreign confectioners with truffles, and various condi- 
ments) regard may be had for helping patients who are atrophied, 
and wasted. Constant heat, and deprivation from water, or 
exercise, develop enormously the fatness, and size of the Goose 
liver, it being a curious fact that charcoal powder helps 
materially towards producing this excessive growth of the said 
liver in size. At Alsace a trough of water, in which pieces of 
wood charcoal remain to steep, is placed in front of the Geese 
under treatment. Liebig taught that charcoal powder will so 
hypertrophize the Goose’s liver as to cause finally the death of 
the bird ; by this fatty degeneration the liver becomes surcharged 
with a phosphoric oil. Geese livers in patés, and in terrines, 
with truffles, are now consumed all over Europe. When the 
birds are considered ripe enough of liver enlargement, they are 
killed, and the livers are taken to the truffling house. Meantime 
the carcases, shrivelled out of all knowledge, are sold for about 
one shilling apiece to the peasants, who make soup of them. 
The next step is to take each liver (from two to three pounds 
in weight), and to lard it with truffles, half a pound of truffles 
to a pound of liver; then to convey it to an icehouse, where it 
must remain on a marble slab for a week so that the truffle- 
perfume may thoroughly permeate its structure. At the end 
of a week each liver, being removed, is cut into the size required 
for the pot which it is to fill, and introduced into that pot between 
two thin layers of mincemeat made of the finest veal, and bacon 
fat, both truffled with the liver itself; and one inch depth of 
the whitest lard is then spread over the whole so that none of the 
savour may escape in baking, which process takes about five 
hours, the fire being carefully regulated. Nothing remains 
afterwards but to pack the dainty, either in earthenware, wood, 
or tin. With the livers of Ferrara Geese fattened to excess, 
