MUSICAL SKIN

Chicken skin.  It’s good stuff isn’t it?  Chickens would probably agree.  A piece of roast chicken without the skin is missing a vital ingredient.  

On the other hand, chicken skin on its own seems less appealing.  I’ve never quite seen the appeal of chicken skin salad, though I know people who love it, and we also know that it’s favored by various, mostly Asian, cuisines. The KFC in Indonesia has bags of deep fried chicken skins on their menu.

Even so I was slightly dubious about finding bags of Little Bobby Jebb’s Chicken Crackling on sale in my local Asda.  Apparently there is a real Robert Jebb – an advertising man before he was a snack manufacturer, and obviously he knows that the word crackling invokes the many kinds of edible pork skin, which is in principle, just fine by me, though the porcine product is obviously richer, and (IMO) infinitely more complex in taste.

Bobby Jebb’s creation was OK, massively salty, and although the bag proclaims there’s no added MSG, some of us might think that a bit of MSG - or indeed flavor enhancer - would be an improvement.

It’s also had to escape the feeling that you may be eating a waste from industrial chicken production, the stuff not eaten by those delicate souls who insist on having no skin on their chicken. It has to go somewhere I suppose. 

Chicken Skin Music is the title of an album by Ry Cooder, also the name of his band for a while, I think.  Personally I think I'd have gone for Pork Skin Music.  Here's one I did earlier.