My mom came over for Chinese New Year last weekend, and part of the tradition with Chinese New Year is that you’re supposed to have a dinner with way too much food. One of the things my mom brought over was a roasted chicken, chopped into pieces. She bought it at Sam Woo, in Irvine. When you buy a whole chicken (as opposed to a half chicken), they really give you the whole thing. This meant that beyond the pieces of chicken that one normally eats, the Styrofoam container also held things like the chicken’s feet, neck, and head.
We were finishing up the last of the leftover chicken last night and Miranda pointed at the chicken head and asked what it was. Agnes and I hesitated, wondering if we were going to face our kids’ realization that chicken as a food and chicken as an animal were the same thing. We said it’s the chicken head and waited to see how they would react. Miranda said she wanted to try it.
I have no idea what there is to eat on a chicken head–maybe skin, but that’s it. Miranda picked it up. Agnes warned her that the comb and beak on the head were too hard. Miranda then took a bite out of the back of the chicken head, crunching through it.
At that point, we decided that was enough, and suggested that she try a different piece, and she was okay with that. When we looked, she had bitten through the skull. Eleanor, for her part, tried out the chicken feet, but didn’t find much to eat there either.
We decided against taking pictures of these chicken parts.