num_pages: 272
description: From the domestication of the bird nearly ten thousand years ago to its current status as our go-to meat the history of this seemingly commonplace bird is anything but ordinary.How did chicken achieve the culinary ubiquity it enjoys today? Its hard to imagine but there was a point in history not terribly long ago that individual people each consumed less than ten pounds of chicken per year. Today those numbers are strikingly we consumer nearly twenty-five times as much chicken as our great-grandparents did.Collectively Americans devour 73.1 million pounds of chicken in a day close to 8.6 billion birds per year. How did chicken rise from near-invisibility to being in seemingly every pot as per Herbert Hoover's famous promise?Emelyn Rude explores this fascinating phenomenon in Tastes Like Chicken. With meticulous research Rude details the ascendancy of chicken from its humble origins to its centrality on grocery store shelves and in restaurants and kitchens. Along the way she reveals startling key points in its history such as the moment it was first stuffed and roasted by the Romans how the ancients obsession with cockfighting helped the animal reach Western Europe and how slavery contributed to the ubiquity of fried chicken today.In the spirit of Mark Kurlanskys Cod and Bee Wilson's Consider the Fork Tastes Like Chicken is a fascinating clever and surprising discourse on one of Americas favorite foods.
language: English
title: Tastes Like Chicken: A History of America's Favorite Bird
publisher: Pegasus Books