# why does everything tastes like chicken?



## jastius (Feb 22, 2014)

this roughly written article is a good evolutionary overview of why strange meats taste like chicken. i thought it might be useful, if not whimsically entertaining.

Why Everything Tastes like Chicken - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com


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## chrispenycate (Feb 22, 2014)

What a badly edited article. Practically every paragraph is duplicated, and there is no clear logical development. Furthermore, on such an essentially subjective matter, whose was the idea of getting a herbivore (all right, a vegetarian omnivore) to judge flavours of food (vegetables are what food eats).

And some of the essential 'facts' are wrong, or at least very questionable. The evolutionary base of flavour is unproven; the assertion that certain flightless birds have been evolving away from an avian 'base stock' longer than other birds is not easily supported given physiological modifications of the other species. But horse doesn't taste the same as donkey (I haven't tried zebra), goat as mutton, despite being very recent splits. I have never eaten any of the great apes, but those who have tried bushmeat say they don't taste anything like pork (I don't know anyone, have never even read the accounts of anyone who's tried long pig to do the comparison).

And rabbit doesn't taste anything like chicken; but that might be due to the fact I've eaten rabbit since weaning, so the cuts of rabbit in my freezer invoke a pleasant nostalgia; I may well buy another. Guinea pig tastes a bit like rabbit, too, and I wouldn't be surprised to find this true of many rodents, though I wouldn't risk the Mouse's ire by checking Rats, or several other members' on squirrel or beaver. While I agree that snake and alligator do show some slight similarity (not in texture, though), as do guinea fowl, but even pheasant, closely related in evolutionary terms, is so separate nobody could confuse the two. Pigeon, too; there may well be other things that taste like it, but none big enough to be worth cooking. Duck (just had some), goose? Specific, recognisable flavours.

Some of it is the environment and diet - enough fish meal in the trough and chicken can approach albatross (what flavour is it? Seabird, innit?), and the all acorn Spanish dark-fleshed pork is wildly different from other pigs. Some of it is a substance specific to the species; the formic acid in chocolate-coated ants is immediately recognisable. While shrimps, prawns, crawfish, lobsters, écrivisses, scampi and even crabs (the major marine arthropoda) share a certain common characteristic this does not carry across to their close relative the scorpion (though if ever I find a scorpion with claws big enough to crack I think I'm changing planet).

Frogs' legs, like escargots, taste of what you cook them in; I suspect that's why they get classed with chicken, as chicken in a strong garlic, herb and butter sauce tastes very herby, garlicky and a bit buttery . Wichetty grubs, as arthropodic stock, have no reason to taste like chicken, and apparently don't; they taste like scrambled egg (again I apologise for not being able to give a personal opinion) or almonds(?) when raw. 

So I'm not going to give any great hopes for Kentucky fried iguana, or hadrosaur.


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## Mouse (Feb 22, 2014)

chrispenycate said:


> I wouldn't risk the Mouse's ire by checking Rats, or several other members' on squirrel or beaver.



Good man!

I agree. Rabbit tastes nothing like chicken. The only thing that tastes vaguely like chicken is turkey. 

Guinea fowl is disgusting, tastes like blood. But I quite like... it's either pheasant or pigeon, I can't remember which. And duck's yummy.


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## Bowler1 (Feb 23, 2014)

A tofu eater telling us all meats taste like chicken, while not eating chicken. When was the last time she ate meat is a question she never answers, despite repeating all the time.


A lot of meat has the texture of chicken and I suspect this more to do with how quick the animal grows. Chickens and rabbits put meat on quickly while beef is slower to grow with a different texture to the first two. However a chicken does not taste like a rabbit, or beef, or emu, or Bambi, or frog and so on as per Chrispy. Either does tofu if cooked with chillies, cheese or different herbs. 


As to sea food, behave. I love crab and it doesn't even taste like anything else I know of and certainly not lobster. I much prefer crab and prefer oyster again, yummy. I chew my oyster and savour the flavour, hhmmmmm.


I also like my meats bloody, so I might give Guinea fowl a go. Cheers Mouse.


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## Ursa major (Feb 23, 2014)

Bowler1 said:


> ...despite repeating all the time.


Well if she's smothering them all with gerkins or similar, no wonder she can't tell between them....




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## Pyan (Feb 24, 2014)

In my family, the statement, with a modifying clause in the middle of it, was an ironic statement about what we had for dinner that day. It was "it tastes _more or less_ like chicken" and that is actually true, when you think about it:

Turkey: more like chicken
Beef: less like chicken
Cabbage: less like chicken
Pork: more like chicken

etc, etc, _ad nauseum_...


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## Bowler1 (Feb 24, 2014)

Ursa major said:


> Well if she's smothering them all with gerkins or similar, no wonder she can't tell between them....
> 
> ​





I like gerkins too. In a burger, or on there own, it's nice to have a little green between the bread!


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## Alter Business (Jul 3, 2015)

I think rabbit tastes a bit like chicken.


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## BAYLOR (Jul 3, 2015)

As a rule , chicken tastes like chicken .


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## Ray McCarthy (Jul 3, 2015)

jastius said:


> this roughly written article is a good evolutionary overview of why strange meats taste like chicken. i thought it might be useful, if not whimsically entertaining.
> 
> Why Everything Tastes like Chicken - Yahoo Voices - voices.yahoo.com



Perhaps foxes think so, I'd always assumed it was just a joke. Rabbit is a* little* bit like chicken, but nothing else I've eaten is. But it was a sort of casserole, so hard to tell.
Turkey, Goat, Sheep, Ox, Deer, Goose, Duck, Pig, Chicken, Rabbit, land snails, crab, lobster, marine shellfish, shrimp, prawn, squid all taste quite different to me as do most true fish. 

Douse mild "meat" in loads of sauce, spice, herbs, garlic, or in a stew and it might be nearly anything. That's why certain recipes (highly spiced, long stewing, sauces etc) invented for older meats or dubious meats. 

I can't actually read the article as Yahoo have become clueless (why close geocites?)
This page loads instead!
https://ie.yahoo.com/?p=us


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