The Chicken Feet

My wife’s taste for chicken feet is, more often than not, something she indulges when I’m not around.

She knows not only can’t I stomach the things, I cringe just watching her eat them. With some Vietnamese food I feel the challenge of actually finding protein between skin, gristle and bone is more the point than actually filling your belly or even enjoying the taste.

Occasionally when chicken feet are craved, but I’m in the house, the concession is I get to ring for a pizza. The implied deal is she won’t mention the fact that it’s both expensive and unhealthy. Then we both silently stuff ourselves with our mutually-repulsive food.

One of my wife’s closest friends lives a few alleys down and she too is married to a Brit. Recently, when he was not around, they met, chatted and munched chicken feet without anyone to disapprove.

She came back with a tale of another Anglo Vietnamese union where the pair had moved to the UK. After several months the wife craved chicken feet so much she overcame her shyness and asked her local butcher if he could supply them.

“The butcher said she could have as many chicken feet as she liked,” she tells me, “for free!”

Truly a promised land.