{"id":10132,"date":"2013-10-19T18:21:46","date_gmt":"2013-10-20T00:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=10132"},"modified":"2013-10-19T14:38:44","modified_gmt":"2013-10-19T20:38:44","slug":"chicken-feet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/chicken-feet\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicken Feet"},"content":{"rendered":"

By TED ROBERTS, the SCRIBBLER ON THE ROOF<\/em><\/p>\n

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My only suppertime exception from barbecue. As I enjoyed a bowl of these babies at a eatery, at Ding How II vision of my old bubbe\u2019s face appeared on the table top. The closest she ever came to Chinese food was a glass of hot tea in her kitchen.BUT she was boiling up chicken feet in her soup years and years ago when the menu in the three or four Chinese restaurants in America could be printed on a fortune cookie note. \u201cChop Suey\u201d it said. And on weekends they added \u201cChow Mein.”<\/p>\n

How true it is that today\u2019s craze was yesterday\u2019s bore. My grandmother served chicken feet in her soup (why waste?) and artfully convinced me and my little brother that it – not the breast – was the real delicacy. (I think she worked part time at the used car lot.)<\/p>\n

Then as I matured into a sophisticated consumer of Chicken Rochenbeau, Chicken Marengo, Chicken Diablo, and Chicken Breast Nintendo, I forgot that chickens had feet. Forty years of chicken breasts prepared with all imaginable sauces obliterated the memory of my grandmother\u2019s tasty delicacy. With a mouth full of chicken breasts Cacciatore, who could remember that the creator had fashioned plump pulkis and feet to carry those breasts around?<\/p>\n

Now forty years later, Oriental chefs are dishing out marinated, pickled chicken feet. Nothing has changed. It\u2019s the same foot. Same color, same shape – maybe a little fatter thanks to DNA research. And guess why it\u2019s on the menu? To reward the “us,” Jewish customers who have subsidized the oriental food business for years. Jews have long used Chinese food to commemorate major events. \u201cIt\u2019s Joey’s bar mitzvah, let\u2019s go have Chinese.\u201d Or \u201cWell, Bennie\u2019s gone, but he didn\u2019t suffer, let\u2019s stop at the Chinaman.\u201d Or \u201cListen, TOMORROW we declare Chapter 11 – TODAY let\u2019s order in some Chinese.\u201d<\/p>\n

Picture a meeting in the kitchen of a four-star Chinese restaurant. The owner and the chef sit across a chopping block from each other. The atmosphere is heavy with the smell of ginger, soy sauce, sherry, and scientific inquiry like when Edison turned to his assistant and stated; \u201cYou know, it would be great if we had electricity so when you got up at night to relieve yourself you wouldn\u2019t fall into the fireplace\u201d. The owner speaks. \u201cWe need to have a new fancy, shmancy dish that\u2019ll thank our Jewish customers for paying $12.95 for a half ounce of meat and 20 cents worth of Chinese cabbage.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou mean like when we gave \u2018em Kreplach and called it Won Ton?\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, but something new.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike General Pao Kae Chung\u2019s Mandarin Chicken – which was a stewed hen in chicken schmaltz with a touch of sesame and soy sauce?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLike when our oriental brothers, the Japanese, came up with pickled herring and rice; and called it Sushi?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cExactly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The chef looked down to think, then looked up with inspiration flashing in his brown, almond eyes. \u201cI got it,\u201d he calmly declared.\u201cWhat\u2019s the magic word in the Jewish heart \u2013 Bubbe (Grandmother) – that\u2019s what. And what did Bubbe do all day besides talk to the kids on the phone?<\/p>\n

\u201cI dunno,\u201d said the boss as he picked at an overstuffed egg roll.”<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll tell you what she did. Just like my mama in Shanghai she worried about feeding her family with a handful of copper coins. And that meant turning fish heads into ginger spiced delicacies that made you think you were sitting at the emperor’s banquet table. The Bubbe did the same magic with chicken feet. But soy, sherry, and ginger root weren\u2019t in her pantry.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m fairly confident that\u2019s what happened and that\u2019s why really creative, oriental pleasure palaces offer up Chicken Feet Dim Sum.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m one of the few Caucasian customers who orders the chicken feet. The Oriental proprietor and his waiters smile profusely – delighted to find an eater who appreciates this exotic, Far Eastern cuisine. Bubbe wouldn\u2019t believe it.<\/p>\n

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