A blast from my past! Who Likes Chicken feet?

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
Growing up ; a young boy of Polish decent, in the smelting pot of NEPA coal region....we raised chickens and ducks in our back yard! They gave us eggs and after awhile they gave us themselves! Nothing was wasted! I won't get into Polish Duck Soup ( with blood)!.... however a real treat were Duck & Chicken feet! A real delicacy !
My wife a day ago bought me, as a joke, A package of fresh chicken feet! Well I have no idea how my Mom cooked these but they were great! I found a Filipino recipe on the internet for Garlic / Ginger sweet & sour Chicken Paws....Did them up this afternoon ...Yummy Really good! Not as good as my Polish Mom did but as good as I could come up with!
No pictures posted so as not to gross out the weak of heart
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
Hmmmm. It never even occurred to us when I was a kid to try to use the feet. We raised chickens,
turkeys and ducks and ate them all, but never the feet.

Near as I could tell they were nothing but skin, bone and a few tendons. Not sure what you could
eat.

Bill
 

462

California's Central Coast Amid The Insanity
Worked with an elderly Chinaman, named John, for about 10-years. Across the street from the repair shop was arguably the best Chinese restaurant in town. John ate lunch there Monday through Friday every week for those 10 years, being serve whatever the owner fixed up for himself and the staff. One day a co-worker and I joined John, and he was served, and ate, this weird looking, curled up things -- yep, deep fried chicken feet.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
closest place for me to even get chicken feet is almost 200 miles away.
last time I had them the neighbor lady across the street made them, I spent an afternoon with her husband and son killing and cleaning chickens to get them though.
 

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I hate dressing chickens. I would rather kill and dress a pig anyday rather than do half a dozen chickens, and I'd do the chickens before half that many rabbits.

Feet? Dog food, or hog food up here. But I've probably eaten worse than that in sausage, and I love sausage!
 

Maven

Well-Known Member
When I was a kid in the early 1950's, my mother & grandmother would order butchered chickens from a vendor they knew. Chicken feet were always included, and after scalding were used (with the rest of the chicken) to make chicken soup. Fast forward to the early 2000's and a banquet dinner with my son's future in-laws, who are Chinese. Chicken feet (dim sum) were on the menu and I was thrilled, but my son not so much! I eat them whenever I can, but not all are equally well prepared.
 

fiver

Well-Known Member
some of them ain't too bad unless they are skin on the whole bird type jobs.
I remember my [at that time future] FIL brought home a bunch of free range poults he had got somewhere.
they were as skinny as olive oyl and you couldn't separate their skin from their meat no matter what.
he weighed about 290 at the time and I weighed about 190 we were pulling each other across the pasture trying to separate the skin from that first bird.
pulling the feathers wasn't any easier, but a lot funnier.
I finally convinced him to fatten them up some before we tried again.
 

Pistolero

Well-Known Member
I gotta agree with Bret. Chickens are a mess to dress, feathers are everywhere. I worked on a chicken
farm in HS, sometime the sexers at the hatchery were not too experienced and my boss would begin hearing
a lot of morning crowing which shouldn't have been happening. Then we'd have to find and catch the roosters.
I took a about 3 dozen home and we ate them before they got too big to be tough. Free chickens, but the price was a
lot of crowing in the early AM, and a messy side yard, plus the work of gutting and plucking them.
I am happy to purchase boneless skinless breast meat these days. I used to be poor, am not now and sometimes
have to remind myself. Old habits are slow to change.

Bill
 

blackthorn

Active Member
Growing up on a farm, we raised chickens for sale. My Mother, Dad and I would do sixty chickens a day. My job was to kill the chicken using a special made narrow bladed knife as the head had to accompany the body (attached) on the ones we sold, as did the feet. My Dad then scalded the chicken in hot water (it stank) and plucked the feathers. The carcass then went to Mother who gutted it. When we killed chickens for ourselves, we never ate the feet in any way, shape or form.
 

JonB

Halcyon member
Many years ago, My two friends and I were playing cards, the oldest of us three mentioned his family was so poor when he was a child, they would eat chicken feet...We didn't believe him and said there is nothing on a chicken foot to eat. Everytime afterwards, when that subject would come up again, we would make fun of him, but he stood his ground and said, we sure did eat chicken feet. I guess I'll be eating crow next time we play cards.
 

JWFilips

Well-Known Member
I guess the excitement about chicken feet is the texture! But they do taste very good if prepared right.
Ah the smell of scalded chickens /feathers! Turns my stomach!
When I was a boy of a boy of 12 I came home from school to a basement full of live chickens! My Dad thought he got a good deal from a Chicken farmer. In he late years my Dad use to recap tires in a big facility in Scranton. He gave the Farmer a good deal so the farmer brought him 45 live ...OLD worn out layers! He couldn't get any more eggs out of them so they had to go! My Dad envisioned the freezer full of good soup chickens!
Of course since I loved animals, I went down the basement and commenced to naming them!
The next day I came home from school and NO CHICKENS! Just the smell of scalded feathers and blood & guts everywhere!
My Dad and Mom worked on them all day! Finally they were put up and frozen!

The crazy part of this story is, we never could eat them! My Mom was a super cook and could make a meal out of anything!
However these chickens had given their all to egg production and she couldn't even make an eatable soup out of the critters!
 

popper

Well-Known Member
Never did eat any but was fun pulling the tendon and watch the gals scream when the toes would curl.