Chicken Feet

Most American’s are familiar with eating pigs feet, preferably pickled. Way, way down south on the island of Tobago you’ll find a delicacy that I love to munch on. Chicken feet souse!
Have you ever wondered where your chicken’s feet went after the leg, breast, wings and thighs make it to your plate. Well they trot on down to Tobago where it’s boiled and marinated in what the locals call “souse.”
I don’t know if chicken feet were another throw away food of enslaved Africans, as was that wickedly delicious weed we know as collard greens. But I sure do love the creativity of Tobagoian cooking chicken’s feet. They make them feets dance! So give me everything but the toe nails please because I love me some T&T chicken feet souse!
As a youth growing up in North Philly, I loved to suck and crunch on vinegary pickled pigs feet. The corner store sold them from a huge glass jar for a nickel. My mother never cooked pig’s feet or chitterlings in our home. She was from Louisiana and we thrived on creole cooking, mostly gumbo. So at every block party I use to seek out the neighbors whose southern roots were nurtured with “colored folk’s cuisine” so to speak, and enjoyed sitting on the stoop eating a deliciously marinated pickled pig feet.
On the island of Tobago, every Friday, Ms. Melva fills orders and makes her rounds delivering her homemade chicken feet souse. The passenger side of her car floor is filled up to the seat with loose paper money. Her grandson sits in the back holding a big brown box, making sure the goods don’t spill over.
I looked for the recipe in Trinidad & Tobago’s very famous “Multicultural Cuisine of Trinidad & Tobago & the Caribbean Cook Book”, compiled by the Naparima Girls’ High School. Published in 1988 it’s still a number one best seller in T&T. No kitchen in T&T is worth its Palau or curry without a copy, brought or borrowed. Most woman who cook, use plenty of fresh seasonings picked from their patch of ground known as a “kitchen garden.” Most woman and men cooks don’t use a cook book at all. Cooking is an intuitive art form handed down, generation to generation. Chicken feet souse recipe?
A simple recipe for pig souse is found in the appetizer section of the book. Chicken feet have yet to trot into the pages of an upscale gourmet cook book. So you substitute chicken’s feet in place of pigs feet. “Trotters” as our local friend Winston humorously calls them are my favorite finger food, for real. I dig in with my finger and can’t help eating the cucumbers, onion and maybe a nip of the scotch bonnet pepper that floats in the spritz of lime marinated juice. Yummy.
A pint size is only 25TT that’s about 4.50US. Melva honked her horn this afternoon and her son Aaron handed mine over. I told her I hear she does pone…she hands me a full pan of pone…potato pone…wow….eating is a high art form down here. The smells and taste of everything called food that is here in T & T is out of this world! She charged me only 25TT for the pone! I realize she likes me and she know I don’t have a million dollars to give “she” what it’s worth. Munching on these delicious little feets, got me chattin’ like a ‘bagoian already! Yeah bouy!
Once you get past the look of actually SEEING the three long little boney toes protruding out from a fleshy mini palm with a tiny toe on the side, it’s like chewing into a limey/salty delicious rubbery texture as you crunch into the fragile bones chewing and sucking the juices and gristle. Some bones you chew small and down they go…larger ones you suck dry and spit out into a napkin or the container top. Hey, this must cure cancer, arthritis or something because it cure my cravin’ for it.
Plenty people love chicken feet. You either love dem feet’s or hate em….toes n’ all! Years ago, when I first saw chicken feet it was raw and packaged in the grocery store, like my other favorite delicacy, turkey necks…but to see the little feet’s I was like…uggg…what in the world does one do with those?
As time went by and I mixed in with the community I found out that a lady would come every Saturday outside the Penny Saver market and sell pig souse and blood pudding. I also enjoyed the pickled pig souse until I found out I have a pork allergy. And I don’t eat blood or want it in a pudding, tho I know some people love it, in many parts of the world, blood pudding is very popular.
Years ago a friend told me she liked chicken feet souse. My husband says his mom brown stewed it at its best. I was like, what is that and why?
It’s a souse, like pickled pig feet but with chicken feet. So I gave it try, I closed my eyes the first time because I couldn’t bear seeing them. THE FEET, so ugly, torn up n’ tattered. I shut my eye and tasted one little toe joint and ever since, I’m a chicken feet fanatic!
With several chicken feet digested without any serious illness or stomach problems, I’ve become a chicken feet connoisseur. Melva’s chicken feet marinated seasoning with onions, cucumber and a scotch bonnet pepper, turns to a thick jell when put in the fridge to keep. I let it sit for a hour or if I really get desperate, I hit it up in the micro for about 50 seconds to thin out the liquid juices.
So last night, (earlier that day I had finished the last of Melva’s chicken feet) we had a Sisters Auction at my house and Patsy from way up country brought me and Claudia, (another American chicken feet fanatic) her version. The marinated juices are filled with cilantro, and all the finely chopped green seasoning herbs you can imagine. I put Patsy’s in the fridge and the next day the liquid was thin and runny as in pickled juice. I am holding back from tasting them cause I am gaining a few pounds eating and cooking mango curry chicken with breadfruit n’ such. So I’ll have to let you know how Patsy’s taste.
I know they will be scrumptious…especially when I munch n’ crunch on them with my eyes shut. Mmm mmm.
Excerpt from an anthology of short stories:
Tobago 2 Nice! by Sista Yankee