a love letter to chicken feet

Chicken feet is my favorite part of dim sum. This sentence will get odd looks and Americans backing away from me slowly, but they just don't know yet how good it is. Anyone who eats dim sum with me has to try it at least once, before they start gagging. Most people either end up liking it, or think it takes too much trouble to eat. (There are a lot of bones.) Or they think about the fact that they are eating *feet* and then talk themselves right out of eating it. This is the wrong way to go.

Of course, not just any chicken feet will do. It has to be marinated in the right sauces, have just the right amount of cartilage, tender, and be a little bit spicy. It should be piping hot. Very few restaurants actually get it right, but when they do, we order a bunch. Last weekend, we ended up with 4 chicken feet plates at Willow Tree. One of my sisters went through two by herself. Yes, they really were that good.

One of the best things about chicken feet is that there is no grace to it. You chew up fat and cartilage and bones, and spit the bones out when you're done. It probably takes you twice as long to eat them as it does for other dim sum dishes. If you're like me, you just like to gross people out, and other people usually don't mind if you play with the feet. I mean, why not?

Jewish and Cantonese partners come to a cultural understanding via
chicken foot soup

The Ritual of Dim Sum, or, Why I Love Chicken Feet