I stood in a chair watching her diligently scrape and pull the yellow stuff off the feet in preparation for the pot of chicken and rice, telling me how they were the best part of the chicken. (She also told me the eyes were the best part of the fish, but that is another story.)
I also watched her at the dinner table as she gnawed each little foot to the bone. And lordy that chicken and rice was good, but I couldn't bring myself to gnaw on her gross chicken feet.
After I grew up I couldn't figure out why my chicken and rice didn't taste like hers, until an old post on DU reminded me of her chicken feet. A Jewish poster said he couldn't figure out why his grandmother's chicken and rice was the best, until he encountered an old lady buying a live chicken at the market, "for the feet" she told him. Or words to that effect.
Your words about it being world-wide rang home to me. Grandmother was only three generations removed from the Scottish Highlands. Her great grandfather was born either in Scotland, or on the boat between Scotland and North Carolina.
Granddaddy, on the other hand, wouldn't touch the things. His ancestors were from England by way of New England and/or Virginia, all with steadfast old British names like Brewer, Cook, Miller, etc. And he still spoke in an Elizabethan English brogue. (But he sure did help gobble up that chicken and rice.)
You can find "dressed" and package wrapped chicken feet in many supermarkets in the south now. I still can't bring myself to cook or eat them. And I think you still have to pull the toenails out, yourself.
Wat
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