This is something that had always puzzled me. Thanks again to the “internets,” that George Dubya Bush spoke of and which Al Gore invented. (sometimes I do satire.) I’m speaking of “Chicken of the Sea.” That’s a tuna company of course. The name comes from what fishermen called albacore tuna because of its white meat and mild taste reminding them of chicken. Perhaps that is where the habit of saying different foods, particularly unusual choices for meat at least in the U.S., saying that the food “tastes like chicken.”
Frog legs? Tastes like chicken. Rattlesnake meat? Taste like chicken. Rocky Mountain Oysters? Tastes like chicken. No, no, wait a minute now. Mountain oysters taste like calf fries to me.
But Chicken of the Sea. It’s a hell of a name, especially when you extrapolate a bit. Turkey of the Permafrost. Zebra of the Lower Fourth Ward. Gecko of the Locker Room. Dog of El Camino Real. You see what I mean?
Back to the whole tastes like chicken thing, have you ever had chicken that didn’t taste like chicken? It can happen. So what do you say when that happens? Tastes like grout on a cracker. Tastes like honey badger. Tastes like … Well, you get it. It just doesn’t make sense.
I’m just glad that Chicken of the Sea wasn’t named after some dude who was afraid of the ocean. So let’s say he goes back to dry land and moves somewhere out West where Kenny Rogers writes a song in his honor called “Coward of the County.” No? Okay, I gave it a shot.
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