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PECKERS at the Annual Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon
I am no vegan. I like chicken, pork and beef. I also like the ubiquitous turkey during Thanksgiving. But why do we eat so much chicken? The other birds must have formed a marketing committee and nominated the chicken to become the most popular meat of all time. That’s one of the things I’ve thought of as a reason. Maybe it has something to do with how chickens were bred and how completely and utterly helpless they look. I do realize we also eat a lot of turkey, but why limit the selection to just a handful? Have we chosen to breed and eat animals based on their intelligence? It might also be because of the chicken’s long history of domestication, and therefore relative docility. It’s been documented that only for the past decade or two that chicken has become so affordable. My parents tell me it certainly wasn’t the case when they were young.
My theory, basically, comes down to ease and cost. Chickens are (for the most part, they can kinda hover) flightless, which means easier to catch. They have a ton of meat on them for their size. They produce eggs that seem to be just the right size. As far as why we pick some animals over others, we want lazy animals. Lazy animals have less developed muscle, so they are more tender and moist. The meat in a chicken breast and the meat in the drumstick are not different. The only difference is that the drumstick does most of the work, and the breast part does almost none.
That’s why we have a cow (Thanks Bart!) instead of horse, chicken instead of duck (mostly), fish instead of giant squid. Look at all of the amazing birds that must be out there waiting to be eaten. Imagine how delicious they must taste. Think about it, the flamingo probably tastes like a million dollars and we will never know. I bet it tastes a lot like Bald Eagle, Spotted Owl or the Peregrine Falcon. Imagine if a smart person were to go looking for the best tasting poultry on earth, and bring it to America and breed them in large quantities. That would be so awesome. Or not.
As far as weird food goes, I’ve eaten my share. I’ve had pig knuckles, frog legs, caramel covered beetles, the most bizaare looking fish, venison, elk, buffalo and yes even mountain oysters (kinda an oxymoron). They actually aren’t as nasty as you might think although I wont be eating those again. Most of the weird stuff is very gamy, fishy, or bitter (bugs). I guess it can be described as what people call ”acquired taste”.
Did you know they eat gourmet emu in Australia? Kangaroo is also popular downunder. If we so wish it, will we be allowed to import and breed these animals in large quantities? They factory-farm chinchillas and mink so why not emus? We can have the homing pigeon teach the emu to deliver parcels faster than UPS. There’s ostrich, too but can’t ever recall having it. Ostrich according to some people is like red meat. Per my friend, it’s nothing to write home about plus you can get ostrich burgers at Hadley’s outside of Palm Springs.
Some even say people in the western hemisphere are scared-shitless of eating anything “weird”. Hell, I actually know people who are still too frightened to eat raw fish. We’re still jumping up and down decrying some asian culture because they eat dog (yes, they do!) and anything else we think is “sacrosanct”. We whinge about the Japanese eating whale and the Chinese eating shark’s fin. What’s the fuss? It all probably tastes like chicken anyway.
