The Origin of Species

by:
September 24, 2012

120907_FOOD_Chicken

If you've ever pondered the age-old question of the chicken or the egg, there's a new poultry-centric debate for you to consider: When did chicken start to taste like chicken?

Chicken has long been a comparison point when sampling exotic meats. The mild-tasting flesh of chicken is familiar to most omnivorous Americans, and so it's an easy selling point when likening it to something out of the ordinary, like frog meat. It turns out the comparison holds some weight: some tasters claim no discernible difference between the two types of meat when tasted blindly side by side.

Shop the Story

Ironically, the animals that taste most like chicken -- frogs, alligators, and other reptiles -- have been around a lot longer. Slate suggests that these prehistoric amphibious creatures tasted like chicken even before chicken -- roughly 350 million years ago.  Consider our minds blown.

Tasting Like Chicken: Its Evolutionary Origins from Slate

 

See what other Food52 readers are saying.

I cook for a living and then come home to cook for fun. When I'm not cooking, I'm reading or writing about food. It's safe to say I've found my calling.

0 Comments