This is what the foot looks like before being prepared. Kind of like a little dragon claw, huh? Or maybe the sort of thing you would grind up to make a magic potion.
The blue foot chicken is a larger type of chicken that has the ability to fly and possesses beautiful bright blue feet. See below. Click on the image to see the enlarged version and get a good view of those bright blue feet.
Blue foot chicken according to Wikipedia "is slaughtered later than the usual chicken and then air-chilled. It is believed that these two factors give it a stronger flavor and texture." Also, blue foot chicken is said to be salmonella free and it is one of the only breeds to be used in sushi (a special license is required to serve raw chicken in Japan).
The chicken foot I ate last night was the the final embellishment on half of a cooked blue foot chicken. Sadly my camera ran out of batteries and I had to resort to my cell phone camera, so my image of the dish is rather dim, but you can totally see those claws hanging out on top of the food!
I gnawed off as much skin as possible, and the toes had a similar texture to the end of a corn dog.
I found a New York magazine article from 2005 about blue foot chicken that discuessed the blue foot chicken's emergence as a boutique bird. Blue foot chickens have only been bred in North America over the last 20 years or so. They are a stateside version of the mythical French "poulet de Bresse." Restaurants often serve the bird with head and feet on, presenting it like a trophy. The one that I ate was juicy and supple and delicious, definitely the best chicken I've had in a really long time.
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