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China’s love of US chicken feet proves a recipe for a perfect trade
FT ^ | August 14, 2017 | Lucy Hornby

Posted on 10/02/2018 6:33:08 PM PDT by Zhang Fei

Americans eat about 9bn chickens a year, but not the feet. Southern Chinese, on the other hand, import about 300,000 tonnes each year of the delicacy known to diners as “phoenix claws” and to the industry as “chicken paws”. It’s a match made in free trade heaven.

And yet this perfect trade of paw to claw was only reached this year, thanks to a small item included in the “early harvest” of deals announced by the Trump administration this spring. That’s despite intense negotiations under way since George W Bush was in the White House.

The item is “cooked chicken”, or chicken sold in cans and frozen dinners. And no, it does not mean that Chef Boyardee is about to sell canned chicken feet at ShopRite. Instead, the US poultry industry has succeeded in opening the US market to chicken cooked in China after a long and dramatic saga designed to open the Chinese market to American chicken feet.

Chicken feet are not particularly expensive. In fact, they are worth zero to most Americans. But margins on industrially farmed chicken in the US are so tight that selling the feet to China in enormous frozen blocks rather than throwing them away in the US makes for a nice difference in profits.

For years the Chinese market has been on-again, off-again, closed to US-bred chicken due to bird flu and other diseases, and creating a booming business for smugglers. While that made no difference to Cantonese diners, it ate into the profits of US chicken producers.

The US poultry industry has challenged the Chinese barriers to American chicken “paws” at the World Trade Organization (twice). But it also embarked on a decade-long, all-out effort to woo the Chinese side that involved Congress, civics lessons and considerable frustration on all sides.

(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china
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Ever wonder what happens to chicken feet and other seemingly non-useful parts of a chicken? Now you know. I understand they're working on finding a use for the feathers. Still unclear on what they do with heads and necks.
1 posted on 10/02/2018 6:33:08 PM PDT by Zhang Fei
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To: Zhang Fei

I use chicken feet every time I make chicken bone broth. Lots of collagen in them.


2 posted on 10/02/2018 6:34:56 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it")
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To: Zhang Fei

I realize it’s all about “what you grow up with”, but there is still no way in hell I’m eating chicken feet.


3 posted on 10/02/2018 6:35:33 PM PDT by Artemis Webb (Maxine Waters for House Minority Leader!!)
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To: Zhang Fei

Chicken hot dos.


4 posted on 10/02/2018 6:36:50 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: Artemis Webb

[I realize it’s all about “what you grow up with”, but there is still no way in hell I’m eating chicken feet.]


Yup. I love liverwurst/braunschweiger, but a good number of people I know cannot get over liver being a key ingredient.


5 posted on 10/02/2018 6:38:06 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (They can have my pitbull when they pry his cold dead jaws off my ass.)
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To: Zhang Fei

Chicken soup is not complete
Without a coupla chicken feet


6 posted on 10/02/2018 6:38:37 PM PDT by P.O.E. (Pray for America)
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To: Zhang Fei

They throw nothing away. Heads and necks probably go into pet food.


7 posted on 10/02/2018 6:41:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: Jamestown1630

I don’t suppose chicken feet have much flavor on their own, being mostly bone and tendon. Is that correct?
I have not tried feet with bone broth, but I suppose it adds a thickening ingredient vs using cornstarch.


8 posted on 10/02/2018 6:42:31 PM PDT by lee martell (AT)
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To: Jamestown1630

Bone broth is the new health fad. Infomercials galore.


9 posted on 10/02/2018 6:43:03 PM PDT by Fungi
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To: Artemis Webb
I realize it’s all about “what you grow up with”, but there is still no way in hell I’m eating chicken feet.

I have had chicken feet in the US. Most dim sum style restaurants serve it. You're not missing much.

10 posted on 10/02/2018 6:43:32 PM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: BenLurkin

[Chicken hot dos.]


Mechanically-deboned meat aka pink slime? Weirdly enough, I’ve seen pink slime marketed as ground turkey. I’ve made turkey tacos with it, and it tastes just fine. The only problem I’ve is a bit more fine bone fragments than I’d like. Not the crack a tooth kind, but a little off-putting.


11 posted on 10/02/2018 6:43:56 PM PDT by Zhang Fei (They can have my pitbull when they pry his cold dead jaws off my ass.)
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To: Zhang Fei

You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken feet,
no matter how much mayonnaise and pickles you add.


12 posted on 10/02/2018 6:44:52 PM PDT by Repeal The 17th
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To: Zhang Fei
YES!!!! I love liverwurst/braunschweiger too! A simple sandwich with a little mayo and a LOT OF MUSTARD and VOILA, AWESOME.

I've loved liver since I was a little kid. Who can dislike a steaklike dinner with no bones in it to deal with? Liver with bacon and onions is among my top dinner choices!

13 posted on 10/02/2018 6:45:57 PM PDT by CivilWarBrewing (Get off my back for my usage of CAPS, especially you snowflake males! MAN UP!)
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To: Zhang Fei
If the Chinese only knew what chicken and hog meat was, they would revolt.

Business partner went to China twice first part of this century. Closest he found to meat was pig ears.

I msg him back to ask the locals where the rest of the hog and chicken were

14 posted on 10/02/2018 6:46:58 PM PDT by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, chances will be taken that's fore sure)
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To: Jamestown1630
In traditional households in Việt Nam the senior male in the family or the guest of honor if it is a larger gathering gets the chicken feet in his soup. I was a bit of appalled when I received that honor the first time but did, not as expected but as hoped, and ate the edible portions. I can't say I love the delicacy now but it isn't really any different from French fries which I am neutral to. I don't choose them but I eat them.
15 posted on 10/02/2018 6:48:18 PM PDT by ThanhPhero
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To: Zhang Fei

Used to be that all of the Chinese maids in LA would get free bags of chicken feet, Not any more!


16 posted on 10/02/2018 6:48:29 PM PDT by BunnySlippers (I love Bull Markets!)
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To: Repeal The 17th

Why would anyone eat a chicken cooked and canned in china. Been there and gag at the memory of virtually everything I’ve seen over there. Sanitation is not in their vocabulary. Visit a wet market sometime.


17 posted on 10/02/2018 6:49:41 PM PDT by oldasrocks (rump)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

They throw nothing away. Heads and necks probably go into pet food.”

In my family, the turkey necks from the Thanksgiving and Christmas birds got made into soup the day after the Holidays. Chicken necks (and gizzards and other not eaten parts) were used for crab bait during the Summer.


18 posted on 10/02/2018 6:49:41 PM PDT by VietVet
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To: VietVet

My late grandmother relished necks and gizzards.


19 posted on 10/02/2018 6:53:56 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet (You cannot invade the mainland US. There'd be a rifle behind every blade of grass.)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

They throw nothing away. Heads and necks probably go into pet food.


We lived in China for 3 years. During the Chinese New Year, the store we shopped at had carmel chicken feet and chicken heads, kind of like carmelled apples. They sold really well. Bald John


20 posted on 10/02/2018 6:55:42 PM PDT by BaldJohn
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