Tastes Like Chicken? Not Possible, Scientists Find

Macon, Georgia, October 11, 2014 -- Scientists at the respected St. Ambrose Poultry Institute of Macon, Georgia have at last dispelled the widely held misperception that virtually every moderately unusual food tastes like chicken by proving that, in point of fact, nothing does.

"We've proven that, contrary to popular belief, it's actually a scientific impossibility for any known commonly consumed dietary substance to resemble the flavor of chicken," said Skinwood Neckle, Research Director at the Institute's Comparative Flavor Analysis section.

"Chicken flesh and skin possess what we've determined to be an entirely unique collection of umami stimulants, the "succulent" or "savory" substances normally found in meats, some mushrooms, fish and so forth. The umami stimulants found in chicken, however, are entirely different on a chemical level and produce a completely individual chemical taste response on the tongue and palette."

The St. Ambrose team isolated the individual chemical constituents that produce the specific taste of chicken and compared them with processed extracts of over 35,000 edible substances, from yak to mollusk, artichoke to antelope, over four years. The results of their arduous research have taken the culinary world by storm.

"What we've found," continued Neckle, "is that any two edible substances are empirically more likely to taste similar to each other than either or both are to chicken. Fermented goat bladder and pecan pie are closer to each other on the flavor scale, chemically, than either one is to chicken. The only thing chicken tastes like is, to put it simply, chicken."

The discovery has already had an impact on both commodities markets and linguistics. Chicken, which has often been considered the ubiquitous black sheep of low-cost food products, skyrocketed on the futures markets following the announcement.

"Let's face it, buyers like unique. Now that we know chicken's in its very own class, taste-wise, it's flown right into the gourmet category," said Salman Pedigree, Agribusiness Analyst at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Representatives of the Global Union of Lexicographers were quick to respond to the announcement as well. "Most of the major dictionary producers will have to reprint their latest editions," said Joplin Ferdinand, Chief Compiler at the New North American English Language Compendium Dictionary Project. "This is far too major a change to be left unedited." Ferdinand indicated dictionaries will have to modify the definition of the phrase "tastes like chicken" to indicate a quality of uniqueness or rarity, rather than ubiquitousness.

"Even that doesn't make a whole lot of sense," said Ferdinand. "What it boils down to is that the phrase 'tastes like chicken' has lost all meaning. It's about as rational as 'smells like gold' or 'sounds like optometry'. I think we'll just have to chop the damn thing entirely."

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor