Passions: If my online order doesn’t arrive my goose will be anything but cooked

Last year's goose, just out of the oven. Picture: Will Slater

By the time you read this, I will probably still be waiting for the most important online delivery of the festive period.

For our Christmas dinner is in the hands of those lovely couriers who never lose an item, damage it in transit or deliver it to the wrong address.

It’s all because this year, we have had to order our goose online. One by one, butchers that we used to order from have stopped selling geese and those that do tend to have small numbers available which are snapped up months in advance.

Unlike the millions of turkeys reared in the UK each year, geese production is a much smaller enterprise as they are harder to rear and can’t be produced intensively.

And why do we persist with eating something difficult to source, which is very expensive (this year’s bird is an eye-watering £125) and doesn’t provide that much meat relative to its weight?

It’s a good question and the basic answer is that we like it, no love it, but it also binds us into a family tradition.

Growing up our household was unusual in that we always had goose at Christmas. It had been what my parents, both from Cumbria, had grown up with and at the time a cheaper alternative to turkey.

They moved south to the Midlands in the 1960s and found few were eating geese and had an annual hunt for one locally.

When you strike out on your own and have a family, you get to make your own Christmas traditions. My wife’s family always had turkey, but she was happy to swap over to the dark side, for goose meat is just that, rich and dark.

We have only not had it once when bad weather meant we couldn’t travel to my parents for Christmas and we had to rush out on Christmas Eve and buy what we could for the festive period. We had a fabulous meal – I think we roasted a couple of chickens – but the next year we were back with goose.

The meat from the bird might only stretch to a couple of meals, but the goose fat, which comes off by the pint during cooking, ensures you can make the finest roast potatoes in the land for months after.

Or at least we will be able to if our special delivery actually arrives in time ...

Will Slater is a sub editor at The Scotsman