Tastes like Chicken

[Laurence Horn]

At 1:41 PM -0400 7/24/08, Stephen Goranson wrote:
>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

And while everything weird tastes like chicken, vowels in exotic
languages are (ceteris paribus) as in Italian.  I can only conclude
that in Paradise Adam and Eve spoke Italian and ate chicken.  (But
not pollo alla diavolo.)

LH

>
>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

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