In 1837 in London, a case came before the court and the following testimony was recorded: “The complainant said that on Saturday morning he was at the plying place at the Tower stairs, when Crouch began to abuse him, and swore he would “cook his goose,” by which he meant he would ruin him, or put an end to his mortal existence.”
That seems to be one of the first — if not the very first — instances of using the phrase “cook his goose” to mean something other than actually cooking a real bird. What it leaves out completely is why when we say “your goose is cooked” it means you’re in big trouble.
It must have been in use before it was mentioned in court, but possibly not for too long. After all, it had to be explained in the case notes. And it doesn’t appear in popular writing until even later. In 1847 William Henry Gregory used it in Paddiana: “I rather think, friend Sandy,” said Smith, looking cheerfully back at the bedroom as he turned the corner, “I rather think, to use a figurative expression, your goose is cooked!”
It’s a fairly odd expression. The only connection you can make between cooking a goose and being in trouble requires a pretty outlandish set of circumstances. Naturally, that hasn’t slowed people down from suggesting very strange stories about how the saying could have originated.
One story was suggested by Myron Korach in his 2008 book Common Phrases: “there was a Swedish king named Eric. His favorite meal was roast goose. His enemies attacked him, but he won the battle, and cooked the geese of his rivals.” This doesn’t really make much sense, but it’s better than the stories that claim the phrase has to do with a religious reformer in 15th century Bohemia whose name (Hus) almost meant “goose” (husa) in Czech. The cooking aspect of that story has to do with the Catholic church burning him at the stake. But why would that fairly obscure event show up in a common phrase four centuries later in a different country?
Then of course there’s the “goose that laid golden eggs.” If you cooked one of those you’d certainly regret it, but once again the tale was around for a long, long time before the phrase appeared.
There are a couple of other expressions that refer to food, like “I’ll make mincemeat out of you,” but most of those connections aren’t too difficult to figure out. With this one, though, I guess our goose really is cooked.
