Fried Chicken Intestines

Here is my host father with a chicken leg and foot and my host mother with the intestine stick.

I really like living with my new family. I get to experience a lot of different things. They are teaching me the value of different foods. I want to make sure that they don’t spend too much money preparing my food. We had a discussion about “village chickens’ versus “cage chickens.” Chickens who are mass produced at a chicken yard and stacked in cages their whole lives cost 20.000 Rp a kilo, ($1 per pound) but “village chickens” who run free cost 35.000Rp. per kilo. ($2 per pound) A 1 foot long by 6 inches high delicious papaya costs 50 cents. A pineapple costs 50 cents.

There are about 20 chickens that live in our back yard. Yesterday my host parents killed 3 of them. When I arrived the chickens had their throats slit and almost all the feathers off. My host mother and father were in front of the outside faucet, cleaning the last of the pin feathers. I pulled up another little 5 inch high stool and watched. They cut off the legs and wings and spilt the chickens open and very carefully pulled out the innards. Then they cut off the chicken feet and hacked off their toe nails with a big knife and put that piece in the pot, then they took the chicken head and cut off the beak and put that piece in the cooking pot. They carefully pulled out the intestines, put a long thin stick inside of them and then slit them open. Then they washed them over and over again, changing the water and scrubbing the intestines together to get the poop from the digestive tract out off of them.

All the intestines and internal organs were cut into pieces and fried. My host mom kept telling me they were delicious.

The other chicken pieces including the head and feet were washed thoroughly and then fresh lime juice was squeezed over them and they were put in a pot to boil or maybe soak overnight. I’m not sure. This morning my mother took out some chicken pieces and deep fried them and we had them for breakfast with rice and boiled leaves, green beans and sprouts with a spicy peanut sauce.

It looked to me that everything in that chicken was cooked except for the toenails and beaks. My host mother told me – they aren’t meat! The fried livers and hearts taste like fried livers and hearts. But the fried intestines really are delicious!