Whole Chicken

The other night we all sat down at the family table for dinner around a large pot of chicken soup. It had some carrots and cloud-ear mushrooms in the broth with big chunks of chicken--in fact, the whole ji rou. I immediately identified two chicken feet floating in the mix, oddly crumpled into a loose "fist" complete with protruding, pointy toe nails. Having walked through a Chinese grocery store before, I wasn't surprised by the feet (they have big bags of chicken feet sold separately in the freezer section), and, according to hearsay, the feet are quite tasty. Nevertheless, I stuck with the more familiar looking parts.
I grabbed a good looking chunk of meat with my chopsticks and pulled it to my bowl. Looking at it, I thought it looked a bit knobby, almost like a knee or something since it was slightly curved. Then I turned it around and saw something that--to a Westerner--was like a scene out of the Twilight Zone. A pale chicken head, eyes and beak closed yet intact, was planted between my chopsticks. I resisted the urge to plop it straight back into the soup, but there was no way I was going to pop it into my mouth either. I turned to J and gave a quizzical look, which she interpreted correctly and right away, "Give it to my dad." I passed it over to W with a smile, and he proceeded to bite into it without a second thought.
J explained that having the whole chicken included is a sign of a good soup. It says, in a sense, that the chef didn't skimp. I can appreciate that, and I can even imagine that the various parts might even taste great. Even if I could get over the eerie idea of having a chicken foot or head in my mouth, however, having to chew through it and spit out the toe nails or the beak seems like way too much work to me. Maybe it is the Midwesterner speaking in me, but I prefer my food to be free of small bones. That's probably why grilled fish is not very popular in Chicago, but sushi seems to have made a significant splash. And I venture to say that chicken head will never grab much of a market in Chicago, except, of course, in Chinatown.