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Real cooking, it turns out, relies heavily on another lost art: patience. 

Of course, I knew I'd need some patience with real cooking. There are pots that simmer for days, pickles that cure for weeks, even brews that age for months. But it wasn't till a full year after we finished the manuscript for The Lost Art of Real Cooking that I learned just how much patience—and faith—I would need when fermenting food.

My miso recipe in the book mentions a miso failure. After days spent culturing koji rice, and months fermenting this particular miso, it flopped. It was alcoholic, yeasty, and unpleasant. At least once a month, I threatened to toss it, as it took up valuable fridge space. But every time, my boyfriend begged me to have mercy on the poor miso, as he thought it "wasn't so bad." Every time I moved to a new apartment, I threatened again to pitch it, but each time, William persuaded me to hang on to it. Mostly, I just pretended it didn't exist, letting it sit in the back of the fridge for months, then years. (I would say that I'm only this lenient on things like miso that don't really mold, but I would be lying.)

While the expression "Your goose is cooked," suggests danger and vexation, I rather think a cooked goose is an object to be revered: the centerpiece of a grandiose feast waiting to be devoured by famished Cratchits on Christmas, or bejewelled dames and mutton-chopped gentlemen. The image instantly conjured is of course a whole roast goose, carved into wide slabs and drenched in gravy: denser, darker and richer than turkey, and more primaevally beasty. But how to cook a goose without the breast becoming dry and leathery? How to prevent the prodigious amounts of fat from flaring up in the roasting pan? A slow roast on a spit would be ideal. But I had other plans.

Spotting a goose on sale in the supermarket for 8 dollars (and with my initial suspicion over the price smothered by innate hunger and curiosity) I decided to spend a day playing around. If duck is so amenable to disassembly and curing, why not its larger cousin, Anser domesticus? I could cure the legs and breast, make paté from the organs, stock from the bones, render the fat for cooking. Even cracklings from the skin. Not a single iota of this noble bird would go to waste. Should you be so inclined to spend an afternoon such as I enjoyed, here is the procedure and the rewards you will reap.

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Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger are our guest bloggers during the week of July 12th. If you have any questions for them, add a comment to any of their posts.

Here is more information on The Lost Art of Real Cooking:

 It's time to take back the kitchen. It's time to unlock the pantry and break free from the shackles of ready-made, industrial food. It's time to cook supper.

The Lost Art of Real Cooking heralds a new old-fashioned approach to food-laborious and inconvenient, yet extraordinarily rewarding and worth bragging about. From jam, yogurt, and fresh pasta to salami, smoked meat, and strudel, Ken Albala and Rosanna Nafziger arm you with the knowledge and skills that let you connect on a deeper level with what goes into your body.