SC - Chicken Feet

[Tara Sersen]

Stefan li Rous wrote:
> 
> Hmmm. Chicken in period had feet. Is there any evidence that they were
> ever served at feasts? or even eaten at all? Of course, they might not
> have been considered food for the gentry so they may not get mentioned
> in any cookbooks. But maybe in other records or writings?

[Disclaimer: It's not quite 6:30 AM, and my tea is still too hot to
drink, and there is an approaching low-pressure system. Be that as it
may,] I seem to recall there being references to feet in, among other
things, some of the later roasting instructions -- in other words, which
birds are trimmed of their feet, and which aren't, before going on the
spit. 
> 
> I have never eaten nor probably seen chicken feet. Maybe there is not
> enough meat on them to be eaten?

Well, I suspect that depends on your upbringing. Some poor, unfortunate
people only eat the tail and large claws of a lobster, too, because the
meat in the thorax and smaller legs, and head aren't worth the effort
for them. Feelings seem to vary for the past hundred years or more
between chicken and other bird feet being a delicacy, a protein source
too valuable for the stockpot to be thrown away, and trash. I can't
imagine what is done with all the chicken feet removed from the chickens
that are processed for supermarket sale, unless they're frozen and
shipped overseas to people who appreciate them more than we do. My wife
remembers getting them for free from the butcher when she was in college
and could afford no more inspiring protein source much of the time, and
very occasionally I'll see them on the little plastic-wrapped styrofoam
meat trays in the supermarkets. Mostly they're considered a quaint
ethnic food.

Society in general would seem to have progressed from being purely
subsistent, where people spent all their time gathering food and
generally surviving, to becoming efficient enough to allow for some
leisure time, to, finally, filling that leisure time so efficiently [?]
that we no longer _have time_ to deal with certain foods which taste
good, but don't have a lot of meat on them. Culinary casualties of this
phenomenon include, to some extent, artichokes, very small shrimp which
actually have a better flavor than large ones, ditto crabs, chicken
feet, whole lobsters, whole fish, which are almost invariably better
than fillets or other more processed forms, and a buncha others.

But to get back to your question... bird feet do occasionally feature in
recipes for garbage, dishes based on the combined giblets and various
trimmings -- these would essentially be stews of, say, the head, heart,
liver, gizzard, maybe the wing tips, feet, and neck of the bird. As I've
said, some birds seem to have commonly been roasted, and perhaps served,
with the feet intact, and they may therefore have been considered worth eating.

They're like very small pig's feet. I occasionally get them on Sunday
mornings at dim sum houses, deep-fried and recooked in soy sauce with
some rock sugar. Many Chinese-Americans seem to view them as a sort of
mindless munchie food, something you nibble on while chatting with
friends and family, or while watching the boob tube.    

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com