A Tale of Two Chicken Dinners

I've had the request to write about food. Rest assured, a post is coming that will shed light on all the Chaddien cuisine I have consumed. But first, I have a story. I suppose they are actually two stories, but they both happen to be about the same thing. A chicken dinner. It's amusing to me that my two greatest food (mis)adventures to date have involved chickens, which I've always considered the least offensive meat in the animal kingdom. I'm not here talking about camel meat, or fried scorpion, or even something as commonplace as goat, which I still have trouble stomaching. No, I kind of wish I was writing about something so exotic, but here I am talking about chickens. I'll begin.

The first event occurred a week ago at the home of Mama Christine's coworker. I was sitting in a plastic chair among 10 colorfully dressed women, half of whom were wearing the same dress as Mama Christine. Munching on my own personal bowl of shrimp crackers and popcorn, and watched as they discussed matters in Ngumbai that may or may not have been related to work. Eventually, huge platters of covered food were carried out by the host and her helpers. When it was time to eat, a girl came around to us one by one with soap and a kettle with which to wash our hands. When mine were washed, I followed the lead of the woman to my left and got up to eat. It looked great! Fried chicken, some kind of salad, and bread to soak up the juices. Someone served me the salad, and then plopped two big pieces of chicken on top. I sat down to enjoy, watching the people around me for cues. Most of them attacked the food with their hands, so I mostly let my fork fall by the wayside. I also noticed almost immediately that many of the women placed their chicken in little black plastic bags, like they were going to take them home. It made sense sort of, because this didn't happen to be a meal time. However, I had no such bag and I'm so totally aware that the one most basic cultural rules is that you must eat well in someone's home, and seeing as I had nothing else to offer to the group, I was happy to oblige. I finished my first bottle of Coke and they brought me another. I ate all the salad, all the juices, and what seemed to me like all the edible parts of the chicken that I'd been given. Content, I lay my plate in the table in front of me and went back to observing. A girl took my plate away and came back to open my second bottle of Coke. I put up a hand to say, "no, thank you, I don't need any more."

 That was a mistake.

 The woman next to me turned and addressed me. It took me a while to figure out what she was saying. I thought she was just affirming that I'd eaten a lot and that the food was good. But then, as she kept going, her face growing more and more stern, I realized with chagrin that she was scolding me for NOT eating! Everyone's attention turned to us as she reiterated how important it is to eat what your host provides, and that it is rude not to. I offered, "I did eat a lot," but she kept going. I got more desperate, "I ate it all," I said, and she scoffed. Apparently that was my mistake. I had not, in fact, eaten all of my chicken and they had all definitely noticed. Look at the hostess, she said. She is not happy because you didn't like her food. She directed my attention to the woman standing by the food table, shaking her head at me in disappointment. "I'm sorry," I pitifully choked in English, and many of them snickered in a way that suggested that they did not find my apology acceptable. Finally, after what felt like several minutes of discussion about my rudeness, the girl said, "you don't want your Coke?" and I just shook my head, having accepted that I was the bad guy.

 On the way home, I tried once more to say to Mama Christine that I had thought that I'd eaten all of the chicken, and she said no I hadn't. So at this point all I could do was hope that out of all of this I had at least learned a lesson that would come into play someday. Never again would I not eat all of my chicken.

 Fast forward one week.

 I was sitting on a mat outside with Bene, who is kind of a little sister to me. We like reading French together out of her school textbook, as activity I cherish! Anyway, as we sat, enjoying the afternoon, our little rooster, so unassuming I thought it was a hen, wandered around clucking plaintively. It struck me as a rather sad chicken, and I remarked on its state. Bene laughed and regarded it, saying that it wanted a wife. Together, we made some more commentary, personifying this lonely guy and trying out different languages to engage him in conversation (ok, maybe that was just me) and went back to our reading.

  A little while later, Mama Kiri, as I now call her, honked at the gate and Bene ran to let her in. When she dismounted from her motorcycle, she pulled a hanging chicken from off the handle and threw him onto the porch. From the way she handled it, I assumed it was dead, but once it hit the ground it jumped up into ready position as well as it could, though its legs were bound together. Its sides expanded and contracted dramatically as it took in its surroundings, wide eyed. I considered what its past 15 minutes had been like; he was sold, flung upside-down on a strange, loud machine, and carried this way at 20-30 miles per hour in the open air, to be dropped on its head in this new place. Mama Kiri told me, no big surprise, that we were going to eat him tomorrow.

  I watched the bird. He was on high alert. His entire body kept leaning ever so slowly to the left until he would fall over and in a flash be up straight again. (It reminded me very much of watching someone who is trying not to fall asleep in public, but their head keeps dropping.) I wondered if he would be able to sleep tonight like this. If anything was broken. If he absolutely knew he was going to die. The other rooster, my new friend, wandered over, still clucking curiously, and I think he was disappointed to find that the humans had not, in fact, brought him a wife.

  I continued to stare, aware that Mama Kiri's watchful eyes were on me, thinking what a strange girl she had taken in. Then, there was a sudden commotion! Bene was chasing the other rooster all over and across the compound! She chased it past the new arrival on the porch and into the living room. As I waited for them to emerge, I couldn't help but notice that the other rooster was audibly gasping in horror from his corner of the porch. Soon, Bene exited the living room with the rooster in hand, grabbed a knife, and carried him to a side of the compound. Is it foolish to admit that only now did I realize this little guy was also going to be dinner?

  I insisted upon watching while Bene held the little guy down with her foot on his wing, took it by the neck, and began sawing away, rather slowly I felt, at his throat. I assumed she would behead the thing, but she only cut it enough for it to bleed out, then twisted its head around while it flailed about. The twitching bird was then tossed into big bowl while she did the same to the second rooster. I'm not at all convinced that they were officially dead when Mama Kiri poured steaming water on their bodies and began ripping out their feathers. Of course, I've always known this is where our chicken comes from, but I think what caught me off guard was that these poor guys never had time to be regular corpses. Before my eyes, they went swiftly from living, scared-pantsless creatures to poultry in a matter of about 10 minutes.

  I helped pluck the chickens, of course. What else could I do? Then Mama Kiri sawed them into a million pieces, cleaning them and throwing them into a pot. And yes, the head, the claws, and all innards except for the intestines were considered edible.

  We waited until the next day to fry everything. The two chickens were served with French fries, plantains, green beans, and bread. As I sat with Mama Kiri to eat, I ripped into my previously-feathered friends in a manner that was as unladylike as I could muster. After seeing the process, I decided that chicken is not any more or less offensive than any other animal. Nor is any one part more or less edible, more or less part of a once living creature. I tore off anything my teeth could extract from the bone, and this time there was absolutely no one who could complain that I'd left too much on my plate.