China Fact of the Day

by on July 11, 2008 at 7:25 am in Food and Drink | Permalink

China is the world’s largest importer of chicken feet and the United States is the world’s largest exporter.  Tyson Foods alone send some 2.8 billion chicken feet to China every year.  The chicken feet are sold at Chinese Wal-Marts (among other places) which in China are upscale and appreciated for their high quality American goods.

d.cous. July 11, 2008 at 9:54 am

Pardon me, but what does one do with chicken feet? My family raised chickens when I was a kid, and the only use my brother ever found for them was grossing out my older sister.

J Larmor July 11, 2008 at 10:03 am

The further away from the US, the more powerful do chicken feet become as ingredient agents for soup.

mdesus July 11, 2008 at 10:46 am

Interesting parallel: In mexico sears are the high end department stores. They sell pretty much all high end clothing brands typical of a macys etc.

mdesus July 11, 2008 at 10:46 am

Interesting parallel: In mexico sears are the high end department stores. They sell pretty much all high end clothing brands typical of a macys etc.

mdesus July 11, 2008 at 10:47 am

Interesting parallel: In mexico sears are the high end department stores. They sell pretty much all high end clothing brands typical of a macys etc.

Anonymous July 11, 2008 at 12:02 pm

Shanghai has a sit-down ice-cream parlor on the main pedestrian road, the sort of place you’d take a date, with higher prices for a couple of scoops than you’d pay in the US. Can’t remember the brand name, Baskin-Robbins perhaps.

Pizza Hut is an upscale restaurant in China. And Buick is an upscale car.

In Moscow, on at least two occasions after meals in quite expensive restaurants, the bill came on a tray with a couple of sticks of Wrigley’s spearmint gum (still in the wrapper obviously). I wonder how much Wrigley paid? I suppose the idea is to get the rich to try something new and then it will trickle down to the masses. In fact, toothpicks were originally popularized in this way, way back when.

PS,
I’ve been to a Wal-Mart in Beijing (Wo-er-ma), and I don’t really recall seeing a lot of American-made goods. Maybe I was in the wrong section.

Brad July 11, 2008 at 12:47 pm

>One of the most popular (and more expensive) restaurants in Cairo is the TGI Friday’s.

>I contend that it should be renamed TAI Thursday’s.

Hehe…Really funny..

Arr-squared July 11, 2008 at 1:46 pm

Chicken feet are also served in Beijing Duck restaurants as a delicacy/side dish along with chicken kidneys. The former are tough and chewy; the latter are like biting into waxy wood.

bbartlog July 11, 2008 at 2:24 pm

Chicken feet (and also heads) add flavor and gelatine to chicken stock.

Foobarista July 11, 2008 at 4:30 pm

A funny story my wife told me once: in old China – like anywhere – highwaymen would occasionally kidnap travellers. If the travellers were moderately wealthy – highly rich travellers had guards – they’d travel disguised as poor people. The highwaymen would feed them a cooked chicken. If they ate the “meaty parts” – and skipped the feet – they were actually poor and let go. If they ate the feet, they were rich and would be ransomed.

WZ July 11, 2008 at 5:12 pm

Pizza hut etc. are indeed more expensive in China than in the US, but certainly it’s not considered “upper scale”. Just go to a relatively decent restaurant in coastal China (or those attached to decent hotels), and see how wonderful the dishes are. How can pizza hut ever be considered “upper scale”? After all, real Chinese cuisine (not those one sees in the US) are really rich in styles, varieties, ingredients…

To read those proud comments above…

sk July 11, 2008 at 8:51 pm

Why don’t you all become vegetarians? Discussing whether a chicken’s head taste better than it’s feet or kidney is too barbaric for such a sophisticated group of people.

Bruce Bartlett July 12, 2008 at 4:16 pm

I ate chicken feet once in Taiwan. On the menue they were called phoenix feet. I asked why and was told that no one would eat them if they were called chicken feet. It tasted pretty much like you would expect a chicken’s foot to taste like. I don’t recommend it.

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