Journal Entry 18: How to Eat Chicken Feet!

My recommendation on eating chicken feet is, well, don’t. But if you must…


















The first thing you want to do when eating chicken feet is bite off those pesky nails! Don't be shy about it. Just hold the foot by the shin, stick each prong in your mouth, one at a time, and take a nibble of toe with your two front teeth. Sing it with me: All I want for Christmas are my two front teeth… nibbling on chicken feet! Mm-mm good!

Once you’ve removed the toenails be sure to nibble off the little skin fat that you’ll rip off with the nail - there’s not much meat on chicken feet, so every lil’ morsel of fat counts.

Once you’re done, go ahead and spit those chicken toenails on the table. Or the floor. Whichever! Someone will be happy to clean it up for you.

Okay, right! Next, it’s up to you. You can: A. Eat the skin, tendons and fat off the shin of the chicken leg or B. bite off the entire toe! (A secondary benefit of chicken feet is that it’s the edible equivalent of a choose-your-own -adventure game.)

What’s that? A, you say? Getting greedy - I like it! Okay, so bite around the chicken shin and take as much of the skin, tendon and fat as you can. This is the majority of the “meat” on the chicken feet, so enjoy! Especially take your time chewing the skin in your mouth and be sure to revel in the scaly, rubbery texture! Mm-mm! Now, you have some work to do…

Okay, time to bite off those darn chicken fingers! I would suggest starting with one of the three longer ones; I think it would be insulting to the bird to begin with his non-opposable thumb. We don’t need to insult the poor beast.




















Stick that finger in your mouth - yup, all the way. Some will be better at this than others, but I won’t speculate as to why. Now feel around with your teeth and find the joint connecting finger to palm. That’s the sweet spot! CHOMP! Oh, who’s your daddy now, chicken!?!

Okay, okay, once you have the chicken toe in your mouth, here’s the tricky part. This may take some skill, but patience and practice will see you through. With the toe in your mouth, you want to sever it at each individual joint. Do it with the joint closest to the tip of the finger first. Yup, yup - again find the joint and CHOMP! Oh, snap! Poly wanna’ cracker? Didn’t think so!!! (My comedic genius would be amplified if you actually saw my chicken-taunting gestures.)

With the remainder of the toe tucked neatly into a corner of your mouth, role the severed portion of the toe around in your mouth sucking off, again, the skin, tendon and fat from the bone. If you really want to throw down South African style, once you’re done with that just go ahead and crunch the bone in your back teeth sucking out the excreted marrow, but I can understand that for the neophyte, that may feel a bit hardcore. …wimp.

Once you’re done, go ahead and spit that bone on the table. Don’t worry; someone will clean it up for you. Repeat.

Okay, now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for! With the toes gone and the shin-skin removed, we’ve finally found our priceless pearl, hidden where only the very cunning would think to look. It’s time to eat… the palm fat!

There’s not much of science to this one. Just push the palm up to your mouth; you should feel a ball of rubbery-fat protruding from the chicken palm. Think of it as the chicken giving your taste buds a high five! Of course, without the five. Or actually it would be four, but I digress. Now… CHOMP! Chew that rubbery-goodness in your mouth refining the fat chunks to a chicken palm stew and throw ‘er back! Mm-mm!

Now, sit back and bask in the self-satisfied glow of a chicken foot well eaten. Or, on second thought, dive in for another 3 or 4; truth is your probably still pretty damn hungry.

Next: Worms! First thing you want to do is bite off the head… (Sadly, this is not a joke either.)