Cooked Goose

A fib and a wild goose chase

When I first heard the idiom … ' Your goose is cooked ' … I had thought it referred to something … calamitous … like someone had a goose for a pet … but it ended up in the pot. And that I thought …  referred to a person's personality.  Put that way … a cooked goose … refers to an arrival at the final grand feast … of achievement … in what we do. But that still missed the meaning … in the phrase. It is something calamitous … isn't it?

 

There is of course the goose that laid the golden egg … unfortunately it was just one a day. Had somebody thought they could cut open the goose … to get all the eggs at once … they would of course have been disappointed. Then … do they cook the goose and eat it? Or maybe its mother goose? Okay … that would mean … we are growing jaded on stories … tales … as a way of motivation … and are dismissing it as a resource … in the way we handle ourselves.

 

Its obviously a wonderful expression … indicative of deep insight into issues … that is otherwise … highly sensitive … and may be subject to the strongest rages of protests about … what has become of us.  It may also be a situation that refers to justice … righteousness … faith … that has become embroiled in its own stew of self vanity. And It starts to feel like as if … punishment is only meted out to those who did good … and rewards to those who blatantly disregard all rules.

 

But why a goose? I was looking at videos of hunters … on a geese hunt … and took in quite a spectacle of hide-outs … duck calls … and some pretty savvy shooting of geese flying about 60 feet up in the air … and having the dogs dash after the fallen ones to retrieve them. But what does it say about cooked goose? Maybe … it means you've lost the interest in the hunt … no more sport … perhaps you need bigger game … like predators … lions … bears … and so forth.

 

Geese of course fly in formation … and form such an expert consistency in the way they maintain … a V-shape … in following the lead goose … on their flights. Maybe it means … you can't take orders anymore … are sick of trying to do the right thing … and getting bored with the same old thing. But why cooked? Do we always seek for what we want for as long as we think we don't have it? And once we figure we got it … do we lose all interest in doing anything anymore? Does it feel like we've … ' been there … done that?'

 

I looked up the dictionary. And here's what I found. A goose is described as an aquatic bird … that also survives on land. Adaptability? … we're losing our adaptive natures … or are growing more resistant to make the effort to adapt? The dictionary says … it also refers to a man who is an incompetent fool. Meaning perhaps … that we no longer feel we don't know … grown too proud … too sure of things … and cannot bring the passions to take a genuine interest in what we do.

 

Then there's reference to the flesh. I'll have to admit … I had problems with this one. Flesh of goose … it says … meaning perhaps that a man's flesh is of similar texture as a de-feathered goose … and so … perhaps we lose our sense of the normal beauty … and let our body waste away. That would also imply in some way … that man as an individual … is referred to in slang … as a goose. By whom! I seem to recall in my youth … having the quality of a star … whose expressions always carried a disdain for the human condition. This guy referred to me as a … ' monkey man.' Is that what it is?

 

I'm certain more people have experienced him. He's a personality who is filled with light … but unlike those who bring a devout sense of the experience of God and man … this guy who shares the same experience … brings a sartorial blend of everything to what he says and does. ' The spirit is willing … but the body is weak ' … a common theme that he relies upon for not being able to accomplish the hard things . Not that he really tries … takes one look at something he has to do … and figures its not worth his while … or he won't get his hands dirty. Then he complains all the time … about the intellectual limitations of others … and says he's … 'surrounded by peasants.'

 

There's an implied meaning here … about losing your natural instinct … the way a goose is a fowl of the wilds. It might refer to the civil natures in society … where a man becomes too domesticated in his habits … what with marriage … family and children. A cooked goose would certainly refer to the member of the rat race … who is at the commuter station on time … clocks in at work … lunch … and then the commute back. I find this explanation close to the heart of things … and figure it provides us with the best possible account.

 

Now as to the origin of the idiom … I got this from the web. Its sourced from several versions of popular folktales. I did a bit of digging and came across ... the lifestyle of people from the mountains of the Ukraine … where folks are fond of embroidery … wear shirts that are embroided … and build homes with wooden trunks of trees … and then paint embroidery all over the house. They obviously bring their imaginative sense into daily living … and associate that with the migratory flight of geese overhead … as if to imply … pulling something out of the air. A cooked goose here ... would have implied ... getting caught ... on a fib ... or ' a wild goose chase.'

 

Virgil … referred to the 12 swans … ' scattered through the sky ' ... as a world reality ... in the Aeneid. Venus was featured sitting on a swan … and Indic temples depict the mother … as associating with swans as well. It depicted the way … man brought what was thought to be imagination … into his daily life. We know today … that it was more than that. It referred to something wild and primal in man … that was originally orderly … stately like some gals … and like the grace of the tribal native … in the jungles … guided him in his life.

 

I avoid cooked goose myself. Too tangy! Everyone knows what biting into a fried chicken wing is like. But when you get to the bone … the tendon … and bone marrow … you'll get the whiff of odor … consistent with meat being raw. Turkeys … geese … ducks … they all require special handling to get the tangy odor out … otherwise it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth. And sometimes … our wild primal natures … has us feeling the same way.

 

A cooked goose … if its well done … with the culinary skills we have gained … may be something special. It relates to us from our primeval past … like a ghost … that we couldn't handle … and finally related the sensation to a goose. A cooked goose may therefore refer to a break with the past … we have become too impatient to handle it with a stately and orderly manner. It may  imply that we have to start all over. Was it Osiris … who painted himself … with the head of a stork. Oh .. I'm sorry … we were talking about geese … weren't we?

 

I attempted a mathematical equation on faith … and came up with something passable … but felt a strange foreboding and brooding sense … of what that implies to man … in his social role. I decided I would not publish it. A case of reaching out into the sublime … when sublime is simply too passe' … to our taste. A cooked goose … who is sublime ... ha-ha-ha!