Chicken Feet

In the news today: China gets its chicken feet from America.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/business/global/16chickens.html

The global trade market never ceases to amaze me. One man's trash really is another's treasure. Every market demand is different, mainly in part because it can be. International travel has not only facilitated this, it has also opened the opportunity for less wasteful behaviors. Chicken feet in America sell for loose change, but in China they could be considered a delicacy.

“We have these jumbo, juicy paws the Chinese really love,” said Paul W. Aho, a poultry economist and consultant, “so I don’t think they are going to cut us off.”

There is a person, whose sole responsibility in his career is poultry economics. Awesome.

What I want to know is, who was the first person to eat a chicken foot and decide it was delicious? That Evel Knievelish Chinese bad boy had about 10% chance of scrumptiousness, with a 65% chance of the scales and talons getting lodged in their esophagus. Quite the feat.

Living in this day and age, we are blessed that all those who came before us have already tried and determined what is good to consume. Imagine being a barbarian and finding out (the hard way) that shark cartilage and palm fronds are not edible? I suppose that's why we've also been given the gift olfactory senses, so that if someone is perilous enought to disregard those instincts so be it.... but in the truest sense of Darwinism, idiots will never prevail.