Chicken: Nigeria vs. U.S.A 5.20.08

Last Friday I asked one of the workers here (Marta) to bring me a chicken to cook on Saturday. She took a motorcycle taxi here that Saturday morning, carrying in one hand the live chicken she brought for me. She killed it out back, plucked it and got it ready to roast. She already knew that I would give her the gizzard (normally reserved for men in Nigeria) and liver. I also learned that she kept and would cook, the heart, the feet, the intestines and the chicken head. This $14 dollar chicken represents for many Nigerians a week or two worth of pay--so nothing is wasted--and any kind of protein is a real treat for them.

Marta also brought with her on Saturday, on the same motorcycle as she and the driver, a 13 year girl named Amama (or Mamalis to those who know her best) from her neighborhood. She looked more like 11 years old, probably because of nutritional issues. She worked hard that morning and by noon we all sat down to eat in the kitchen. The "non-U.S." chicken parts had been boiled in a pan and actually smelled really good. Mamalis is a very sweet girl from a very poor family with a non-working mom and alcoholic father who drinks most of the small wages he earns. She was VERY excited that she would get to eat chicken that day. A huge treat. She loved the skin and intestines and the liver...and the head. I decided I should branch out a little and so had some of the feet and part of the cheek. And I shared some of my chicken with them as we sat in the kitchen and talked and laughed. I told them I liked how they wasted nothing and how my father, who grew up during the Depression, was raised the same way. They of course fully understood, because they live each day that way.

Then Marta asked if she could take the bones home to her dog, which she said he normally eats whenever she is able to get them. Just today (Tues.) for lunch we finished the chicken. The workers here had some with me yesterday and a little more today.

Early this AM, Marta brought in another chicken, which I told her last night I wanted to watch as she did her thing. So at 7:45am she took it out back and showed me how she stands on the chicken with one foot on its legs and one foot on its wings, and hold its head and then slices its throat with a knife. Quite a bit of blood drains and spurts out as the chicken writhes for a minute or two. Then after it dies, she put the chicken in boiling water, which helps make the plucking of the feathers easier. Ten minutes after the first cut, it is ready to be cooked.

This may seem a bit gruesome to you, but over here, it really isn't. It is just part of the process. It is just the part of things that we never see back in the U.S., where we are so good about hiding and ignoring the less pleasant side of life.

Give us the boneless, skinless, roasted chicken breast--and let's skip all the innards--and maybe the dark meat, too--and pretend like somehow this creature didn't have to die for us to enjoy our fajitas. (Don't get me wrong, I am a big fan of beef and chicken). But the experience does in a small way remind me how much we blind ourselves to larger truths and realities back in the U.S., and even here in Nigeria, to a lesser extent.

But not much is hidden here in Nigeria. I like that, and I think you would, too.

So enjoy that lunch the next time you visit Chick-fill-A or Taco Cabana or La Fonda or Alamo Cafe. But you may want to give pause for extra thanks for the Provision, and recall that our easy lunch in Dallas or San Antonio may be a week's pay here in Nigeria. Maybe we will all enjoy and appreciate the "simple" things a bit more.

Personally, I am looking forward to Blanca's chicken nachos at Casa Navarro in Dallas as soon as I return. I think it will be better than ever--for lots of reasons.