I am having a marathon chicken week. I have eaten three different preparations of chicken: fried, roasted and in a pasta sauce. I think I can have chicken all day for a week and not repeat a single dish. I think it’s the most versatile and most available meat in modern history.

It seems every family and every restaurant the world over has its very own chicken specialty. In fact, Randal Caparoso (one well traveled gourmet, sommelier and author) attests that a restaurant’s caliber can be judged by the chicken it serves. That is: great chicken dish = great resto (or maybe he just loves chicken). Because chicken is a more widely accepted meat source compared to pork or beef, any menu should have at least one chicken dish.

One the other side of the gustatory spectrum, when we dine on unfamiliar ‘meat’ we say that it ‘tastes like chicken’. We have heard that from people feasting on rats, frogs, snakes and what have you. It seems that everything out of the ordinary gets in this flavor category. An evolutionary biologist claims to have an answer here. They basically are saying that commercially grown chicken tastes bland like most other exotic meats. They lack flavor when compared to say beef or pork.

Whatever scientists say, I’ll still go on culinary adventures in and out of my kitchen - with or without chicken because those weird stuff are bound to taste like chicken to me anyway.

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