“Christmas is coming and the goose is getting fat.” It’s a line I grew up hearing as a child every festive season, and, while at the time I didn’t understand what the implications of the song were for the poor, gradually expanding goose, as an adult, it’s a somewhat more chilling song – although at least it’s not being overstuffed a la foie gras.
As an adult, I would also struggle to share a table with a cooked goose, which thankfully is generally not a core element of a UK Christmas any more, even as it remains standard yuletide fare in Northern Europe. Not that a stuffed turkey is any better – their raising and slaughtering is no more humane than it is for geese – although it’s remarkable how familiarity can turn down the repulsion/ disgust factor that so many plant-based eaters come to experience when they encounter meat. (In much the same way, I imagine that, in the West, many contemporary vegans might find dog meat more disgusting a concept than beef, even as there is an intellectual understanding of their equivalence.) Like many people reading this column, I won’t have to share my Christmas table with any geese, turkey, ham or gammon, but I’m aware that for many committed plant-based eaters, this won't be the case and that it won’t necessarily be easy.