There’s no accounting for personal tastebuds. What my son relishes on his dinner place, my daughter disdains.
That’s even true with our chickens. Nothing makes our little flock of chickens giddier than salad-making day because they get the ends of the celery, the heart of the lettuce, the skins of the celery.
I’ve seen a hen snatch a piece of green pepper in mid-air and scurry to the far corner of the coop to devour in private. They seem to be two-legged garbage disposals.
My family’s response to any food they don’t like is to gift it to the chickens. There’s no accounting for pleasing the palate sometimes.
When I was on one of my health food kicks, I often served couscous. I really liked couscous because it cooked up fast and it was supposed to be good for you. I didn’t evaluate taste much.
I served couscous several times before I noticed that the dish of couscous came off the table with one spoonful taken out: mine.
“You don’t like couscous?” I finally asked my husband.
“I call those grit-grits,” he said. “Give them to the chickens.” He’s not southern, as you can tell.
Chickens like couscous. They finished off the whole bowl faster than eight-year-olds eat ice cream. Couscous ranked right up there with leftover rice and carrot peelings. Top tier in chicken cuisine.
One day a basket of produce came our way, which included artichokes.
I was determined to learn how to serve artichokes to my family, so I did the logical thing and Googled artichokes.
You can grill artichokes. Boiling them doesn’t add any flavor, I learned. Butter must be added. Uh-huh.
Steaming artichokes was also acceptable, and so was roasting.
The options sounded so routine, like offering garden peas or green beans.
I made a special dipping sauce and put my find on our table.
Did you know that artichokes are the edible immature flower of a cultivated thistle? Being the daughter of a farmer, I should have asked why anyone would grow a thistle. Dad devoted his life to fighting the thistle wars. I’ll bet roasting and boiling the pests might have appealed to him.
But remember, I was the one who overlooked the couscous reject
But remember, I was the one who overlooked the couscous rejection for months.
My thinking was more along the lines of “Why not? It might be fun.” In other words, delirium.
A little coaching on how to eat an artichoke was in order, but I made it quick because the kids were glazing over from starvation, eyeing the hamburgers and not my artichokes.
They did try the artichoke leaves after I glared. Once.
“Feed those to the chickens,” my son said.
I’m less heartbroken over a failed dish when someone gets some good out of it. If that’s the chickens, so be it. We do get to eat their healthy eggs, so I think it works out ok.
The next night, I noticed that the chickens had eaten the bits of cauliflower and leftover iceberg lettuce. But the artichoke leaves remained on the ground.
So the chickens could stomach broccoli stems, dry biscuits, carrot tops, and cucumber peels.
Artichokes, those edible thistle flowers, were scorned by the chickens. They did have some discernment.
My husband called couscous “grit-grits” but it’s pretty obvious that to the chicken palate, artichokes are worse.
