In 1998, my then 25-year-old daughter came to China to visit me, flying from London to Shanghai, where I met her. We stayed there overnight and next day set out on a 36 hour train journey to Hunan*, where I was then living. At one point in the journey, a China Rail employee came along pushing a trolley cart, as they did all the time, selling snacks and drinks. Warm beer, mostly.
My daughter decided to lean over and look into this particular cart to see what was on offer and I’ll never forget her reaction. She leapt back as if scalded, with a look of horror on her face as it drained to white. The cart was piled high with braised chicken’s feet, complete with toenails. My daughter was no fussy eater but that normally placid young woman was in shock!
Chicken's Feet
This is something most westerners visiting China comment on – the Chinese people’s love of chicken and duck feet. They happily chew on these meatless collections of bone, tendon and sinew all the way across China. There are variations in this gelatinous diet. Five-spice feet, chilli feet. The only flavour is in the sauce or spice rub.
Soy Braised Chicken's Feet
Euphemistically, the chicken’s feet are known as 凤爪 (fèng zhuǎ, literally ‘phoenix claws’), they are more technically 鸡爪 (jī zhuǎ, ‘chicken claws‘) or 鸡脚 (jī jiǎo ‘chicken feet‘).
Pickled Chicken's Feet
They are sold as snacks and as beer food, but also turn up in soups and noodle dishes. They are served as dim sum. Here in Liuzhou, 鸭掌 (yā zhǎng), duck’s feet are considered by most people to be an essential addition to the city’s signature dish, 螺蛳粉 (luó sī fěn), being an ideal pairing with snails. In fact dishes of snails and duck feet appear on many menus.
Duck's Feet with Snails
Also the likes of 绝味鸭脖 (jué wèi yā bó), the chain of duck part shops mentioned in my last post, and its imitators do a roaring trade in feet. Convenience stores and supermarkets sell packaged feet for snacking on. Indeed, such is the demand that China runs out of feet and has to import them from Europe and the USA, where they are not wanted. Feet are a huge multi-million dollar business.
Duck's Feet
The gourmet end of this market focuses on goose feet, highly popular in Hong Kong and other Cantonese cuisine strongholds. They are often served with more expensive goodies such as abalone, truffles or rare mushrooms.
Goose Web
Goose feet are usually referred to as 鹅蹼 (é pǔ) or 鹅掌 (é zhǎng) meaning ‘goose web’, mere ‘feet’ being too downmarket for such a wonderful treat! Like all feet, they are gelatinous and have next to no meat. You use more calories eating them than they replace!
Cooked Goose Web
Of course, other places also partake in feet food, mostly in Asia. Indonesia has a popular soup, soto ceker, which is chicken’s feet served in a clear, yellow-tinged broth with spices such as ground shallot, garlic, galangal, ginger, candlenut, bruised lemongrass, daun salam (Indonesian bayleaf) and turmeric for colour. It is often served with noodles and vegetables. Vietnam has most of the Chinese preparations, but serves them intheir own fashion, with herbs.
Korea serves chicken’s feet (닭발 – dakbal) grilled with a chilli sauce as beer food, while Malaysia curries them. The Philippines has spicy grilled feet as a street food, bizarrely called adidas after the sports shoes brand.
In the Americas, Jamaica has a slow -cooked chicken’s foot soup and the feet are also curried or stewed and served as a main course in a meal. Mexico also has its foot soups as well as stews using the chickens feet. They can even rustle you up a chicken’s foot mole
As for me, the only feet I do is pig’s feet, but I do buy chicken’s feet to make chicken stocks. The gelatin is welcome there!
* Today, on China’s incredible bullet trains, it now takes a mere eight hours. Whether they still sell feet, I don’t know
