COUSIN CLEAVON'S REDNECK COOKING: Holiday Berkeley Pit Geese

It is now the season to start thinking about what to have for that Thanksgiving dinner table. I found that you don't always have to have turkey.

We cook geese every other year. The drawback to having a goose for dinner is having to pluck all the feathers, but my grandpa in Butte found a way to get free plucked geese. My friend "Dennis" (not his real name, to protect him from potential liability), heard that geese fly into the Berkeley Pit where the acid water not only kills them but removes the feathers as well.

Dennis has a friend who works for the company. His job is to get the geese out before the tourists on the observation platform see them and get upset. Plus, the worker and Dennis don't like to see any meat wasted.

After Dennis gets the geese, he guts them (putting the entrails in a suitably marked hazardous waste container for proper disposal) and throws baking soda all over the cadaver to neutralize the acid. If the bird is still wet from the pit, he will put it in an iron pot first, to precipitate any residual copper. In any event, wash well to remove as much arsenic as possible.

INGREDIENTS

1 Berkeley Pit goose

Stuffing

Salt and pepper

Cup of salt for brine

2 oranges

4 gallons of water

1 cup of apple cider vinegar

5-gallon bucket

DIRECTIONS:

1. After neutralizing the acid on the goose, wash the goose with water. Make a brine in a 5-gallon bucket. Add 4 gallons of water, a cup of salt, 2 oranges cut into quarters and a cup of apple cider vinegar. Add the goose to the brine and let sit for a night.

2. Once the goose is soaked in brine, remove it. Fill the goose full of the stuffing you like and put salt and pepper all over the corpse.

3. Then put the bird on a deep cookie sheet and cook the goose in an oven at 375 degrees for 5 hours.

Caution: Consuming more than one pit goose per year may exceed EPA recommended toxin exposure recommendations!

If you would like a pit goose, contact Dennis at cousincleavon3@gmail.com. Leave message. Subject to availability.

Bon Appetit! P.S. these recipes aren't verified, but let us know if you give them a try!