chicken foot soup

A few weeks ago, I visited a local supermarket that specializes in meats, and when I say "specializes in meats", I mean that they sell animal parts(It's called Giunta's Meat Farms(not an Asian supermarket)) that you cannot find in traditional supermarkets. Here's a list:

• Goat meat
• Pork stomach
• Chitterlings(a polite term for what is actually pig intestines)
• Veal Tongue
• Veal Brains
• Cow Tongue
• Whole Octopus
• Mussel Meat
• Turkey Neck
• Turkey Wings
• Turkey Tails
• Pork Casings

I keep a lot of lists on my phone for potential future videos, and yes, I'd like to make videos of dishes featuring each of the above ingredients- except for veal brains because my dad won't let me eat it for fear of Mad Cow Disease, even though veal brains are perfectly safe to eat since they come from cows younger than 3 weeks old. I'd be safe to assume that you can't stomach the thought of eating a baby cow's brain and would wish it the brains would be relegated to Fear Factor(a now cancelled show featuring people eating disgusting animal parts for money).

I've figured out that people make up palatable names for animal parts that are disgusting to eat. Here's a list:

• Escargot(read: snails)
• Caviar(read: fish eggs)
• Chitterlings(read: pork intestines)
• Tripe(read: cow stomach)
• Sweetbreads(read: animal pancreas)
• Dinuguan(read: a Filipino pork blood stew with lungs, kidneys, intestines, ears, heart and snout)- I've had this dish before, believe it or not. It was delicious- and it creeped my dad out.
• Pig Trotters(read: pigs feet)
• Rocky Mountain Oysters(read: buffalo testicles)
• Black pudding(read: a sausage in British cuisine made from pork fat, pork blood, and oatmeal)
• Giblets(read: any edible internal organ from a chicken)
• Menudo(read: a Mexican soup involving cow stomach(tripe))
• Scrapple(read: a Pennsylvania Dutch meatloaf made from pig heart, pig liver, pig kidney, and other offal)
• Phoenix Claws(read: chicken feet)

To me, none of these things sound unappetizing. But then again, my family is full of picky eaters and apparently that gene has skipped a generation in myself(but not my sister. She thought lamb broth was gross when I mentioned it to her.)

The world would be a better place if people could put their biases and fears to the side and just try new foods like offal. My dad couldn't put his biases and fears to the side when I offered him some of this chicken foot soup I made, for he refused to try it. He keeps making futile efforts to turn me into a vegetarian by telling me how I would feel of space aliens ate my [insert disgusting body part I have tried]. That 's not going to turn me into a vegetarian.

I admit, it was weird trimming the nails off of the chicken feet. But I would do it again if I made this soup again. Now the package didn't say if these chicken were grass-fed, so they probably have stepped in s***, which is why you should thoroughly was the chicken feet in cold water after trimming the nails.
One of the many weird things about this soup was the fact that if you store it the fridge as leftovers, the soup turns into jelly due to the collagen in the bones, as well as the bones of the chicken itself. But if you don't like eating jelly with chicken feet in it, just microwave it for a minute and that jelly will turn back into liquid.

Eating the chicken feet is a feat(no pun intended) in itself- the feet are mostly bone, so your mouth has to maneuver around the bones to eat the edible parts.

Sometimes I wish I had a bigger saucepan- I couldn't use 4 of the 17 chicken feet I had because I didn't have enough room to fit both them and the vegetables I put in. I was planning on using carrots but my dad ate them all before I could get a foothold(no pun intended) on them.

The chicken feet and vegetables really fill you up, so much so that I can't eat the liquid that's remaining. But then again I found the liquid to be very bland anyway, even with myriad of spices I put in the soup.

You might be wondering why I used Japanese Pumpkin in a Jamaican dish- it's because I bought it from that small local Asian supermarket I went to and I didn't want it to go to waste. Plus, actual orange pumpkins aren't accessible where I am in April and just using pumpkin puree that came from a can in your soup will only cause the puree to dissolve during the simmering process, which is kind of what happened to the flesh from the Japanese Pumpkin that I was able to scoop out(which wasn't a lot, to be honest.

The Jamaican dish I found(http://jamaicans.com/jamaicanchickenfootsoup/) used pumpkin in the recipe, which is why this dish is Jamaican.

You will need:

For the cooking equipment:

A large bowl
A large saucepan
Kitchen shears

For the soup:

1-2 lbs. of skinned chicken feet(a link on how to skin chicken feet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdwwd_1wpZg)
1 Japanese pumpkin(kabocha squash)
2 Plantains
1 diced onion
Enough water to fill your saucepan halfway
Pinch of cayenne pepper
Pinch of allspice
Pinch of garlic powder
Pinch of oregano
Pinch of black pepper
Pinch of salt

1. Trim the nails off of the skinned chicken feet using kitchen shears. I tried using a knife but that didn't work. Put the trimmed chicken feet into a large bowl.
2. Rinse the bowl of chicken feet with cold water. Remember, those feet probably stepped in s*** in their previous life.
3. Cut a Japanese pumpkin in half vertically.
4. Scoop the pulp and seeds out of the pumpkin halves.
5. If your knife is sharp enough, cut the pumpkin halves into 1-inch pieces. Otherwise, just spoon out as much flesh as you can out of the pumpkin halves. It's like removing the fruit from the inside of a mango or cantaloupe.
6. Cut the ends off of 2 plantains.
7. Make an incision on the top of each plantain and peel the skin off of the plantains.
8. Cut the plantains into 1-inch pieces.
9. Boil enough water in a saucepan to fill it up halfway.
10. Once the water is boiling, put the chicken feet and spices into the saucepan. Let the chicken feet boil for 20 minutes.
11. Add the plantains, Japanese pumpkin, and onion into the saucepan. Reduce the heat to a simmer. Let the soup simmer for 30 minutes. Stir the soup every 10 minutes.
12. Serve with wonton strips or garlic bread. Bon appetit!