Tastes like Chicken

[Stephen Goranson]

If you search "tasted like chicken" at google books:

1907 Ferdinand Magellan By Frederick Albion Ober
p.217 [in the Philippines?] ...frugiverous bats, "as large as eagles,"
the flesh
of which, he [in 1521?] says, tasted like chicken.

1908 Egypt and the English, Showing British Public Opinion in Egypt
Upon the...,
by DBW Sladen
p.267. [in the Sudan] ..an iguana three or four feet long....it saw
them eating
it...This was no surprise to me, for I knew Australian explorers who had eaten
them, and said they tasted like chicken. Frogs and snakes certainly do.

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

Quoting Ed Keer <edkeer at YAHOO.COM>:

> I'm doing some research for a friend on 'Tastes like chicken". Has
> anyone done any research on this phrase that they can share?
> So far I've found some early (1914) usages in advertising for tuna.
> The Chicken of The Sea website claims that the fact that albacore
> tasted like chicken was the basis for the product name (also around
> 1914). Is the canned tuna industry the starting point here, or is the
> phrase older?
> Thanks,
>
> Ed
> watchmesleep.blogspot.com
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org