Tastes Like Chicken

A very dear friend of mine emailed me to tell me she had received a fortune at a Chinese restaurant that read, "Tastes Like Chicken." She said that only I would understand the chuckle she got out of it, and perhaps she is right! So much so that I decided to hijack the phrase and write about it here.

When someone tastes something new and says that it tastes like chicken, what are they really saying? Has that person actually tasted chicken? If you eat fried chicken, or chicken marsala, or chicken pot pie, are you actually tasting chicken, or are you just tasting the coating or accompaniments? I think the only way you can actually "taste chicken" is to roast it with nothing more than some salt and maybe a little pepper.

Roast chicken is my favorite way to enjoy chicken. I like to heavily salt the outside and inside with Kosher salt (this helps to draw the juices towards the skin which has the effect of keeping the meat juicy), cut a lemon in half and put half in the cavity (skin side towards the back) followed by all the cloves of an entire bulb of garlic separated (you can leave the skin on as it will easily fall away once the clove is cooked), then the other half of the lemon (skin side towards you), and pop it in a 350-degree oven for about 1:30-1:45, depending on the size of the bird. About 15 or 20 minutes before it's done, take the outside lemon half out and put into the roasting pan together with the garlic cloves to finish them off . The chicken skin (if you are a person who eats it--I don't, even though it IS tasty) turns a glorious golden brown, and all that meaty juiciness is held inside, and the garlic serves to perfume the whole deal (and the cloves are allegedly good for you--I eat them all!). I cut off a leg and thigh as a unit, put it on a plate with some rice, pull the skin off and tear into tasty, juicy chicken!

So for me, chicken is really tasty! "Tastes like chicken" to me means wow, this is awesome!

To many people, though, "Tastes like chicken" means, "I have no ability to distinguish one thing from the other, and I have never really tasted the chicken anyway, and I'm not really into tasting my food period because I don't want to spend the time to savor it close to its natural state so it needs to be all breaded, fried, smothered or whatever, but my guess is that the actual chicken doesn't taste like much at all."

So "Tastes like chicken" can be a metaphor (you knew I was getting to that, right?) for an inability to really taste, or participate in the seemingly trivial, or the mundane, or more likely, the here and now. If your daily life "Tastes like chicken" or (here's the triathlon tie-in which I feel obligated to make) your workouts "Taste like chicken," then I suggest you really taste the damn chicken and then come back and let us all know how everything else is exactly like it.

Behold the humble chicken, or, if you will, your everyday life. Do you appreciate it for its life-giving properties plain and simple? Or do you feel it is so bland that you need to introduce constant entertainment and excitement into it? At the end of the day, all we are left with is the plain chicken, and my personal belief is that if you can't enjoy and appreciate that, then it will be tough for you to be happy. Even when you add spices, sauces or other forms of excitement.

You probably think that I should practice what I preach based on what I typically write about here--workout this, training that, race this and that. Those are things that certainly don't "Taste like chicken," but I very much do appreciate the plain chicken in my life. The ability to sit quietly and think (or not) and see that mostly life is good and the chicken tastes just great to me, thank you very much, is something that I cultivate on a daily basis. For at the heart of all this athletic stuff that I engage in is a profound desire to be at peace with myself and in as much harmony with my environment as I can be. I'm getting better at it, but struggle sometimes with my frame of reference. I like to tell my friends that if I had unlimited money that I would eat sushi every day! But if that's true, then wouldn't sushi become my "chicken?" So I struggle to be happy with now being quite enough, I struggle with my ego wanting to be in a position to judge and compete and win, and I struggle with a desire to create bigger challenges for myself. It's all relative. I just don't want to look at my life and ever be dissatisfied because it "Tastes Like Chicken."

Curiously enough, on Sunday I was treated to a very rich meal in the middle of the day, but I had not anticipated eating so much or coming home with leftovers (both of which happened). I had defrosted a whole chicken and had to cook it that night. As much as I enjoyed the butter, cream, cheese and sweet infested meal (although I didn't feel too great yesterday as a result--I am just not used to eating such rich food), I thoroughly appreciated my "plain" chicken later that day and will enjoy more tonight.

The next time I hear someone saying something "Tastes Like Chicken," I'm sure it will give me pause.