Answer: Chicken Teryaki. (He "chickened out".)
I have another story for you about one who "chickened out". In this case it was the chicken himself.
This story is about a young, newly-married couple, living on an Oklahoma cotton farm, circa 1936, during the "Great Depression". These folks were family members, but to protect the innocent, we'll call them Mattie and Ed.
Now in the thirties, times were hard for everyone; putting three meals a day on the table was a problem for everyone, especially hard-laboring farmers. Fried chicken dinners were usually reserved for Sundays or other special occasions. These birds were handy and relatively economical to have around -- you could buy 25 baby chicks from Montgomery Ward for $1.90, then put them in a brooder for safety and warmth and when they grew up you could have "layers" and sell the eggs, or have "fryers" to eat.
Thus, with the stage set, I will proceed with the story, with a reminder that this event took place around 75 years ago and has been retold over and over. I will attempt to use writer's discretion or poetic license to fill in any gray areas.
So on this 1936 cotton farm, Ed was out in the field hoeing or doing whatever cotton farmers. do. Mattie began to make plans for supper, thinking about it and wanting to do something special and at the same time "prove her mettle" as a new farm wife. She happened to spot their large flock of chickens running loose around the farm buildings, grazing and having a "puck, puck, puck" good time. An idea popped into her head! FRIED CHICKEN!!! YES!!! Her candidate for supper was a healthy, plump, energetic young bird.
Now, being a farm girl, Mattie could cut up a chicken and she could fry. There was only one small problem; a lot of farm girls were not fond of dispatching them, especially by the methods the men used (which we'll skip for this narrative). So what to do? Aha, to do this thing and impress my new husband, though I'm no Sergeant York, I think I can get the old "twenty-two", find some bullets somewhere, and plug that sucker in the head, so as not to mess up the meat anywhere. (Just about all farms had an old .22 rifle sitting in the corner, often a single-shot, which was kept for two-legged and four-legged varmints, and for hog-killin' time.) This method of elimination would be best and least painful for both Mattie and the chicken.
So she got the rifle out of the corner in the bedroom, went to the standard place where all old farms kept their "reserve ammo" (five or six rounds in depression times) --gathered up all the bullets she could find in the ash tray filled with straight pins, safety pins, buttons, and needles. Carrying the lint-covered bullets, she headed out on her mission.
She went after that chicken through the whole flock of squawking , fluttering birds; she chased him all over the farm. There he is in the pig pen! BANG! There he is over there- in the cow pen! BANG! Oh, how did he get into the windbreak? BANG! I got him now--there in the woodpile...easy....BANG! There he goes...our supper...down the cotton row--I got you now! BANG!
He's gone, but there are others, BUT...I'm out of bullets. Must tell Ed to get a new box.
There was no fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy that night on that depression cotton farm to greet the tired farmer returning to his new wife. But on his return, Mattie hugged Ed and said: "Well, the supper I had planned ---chickened out, but we've got something better--your favorite." And Mattie led him to a table filled with a big bowl of juicy red pinto beans, crispy corn bread muffins, a jar of chow-chow, and...oh yes, some collard greens out of the garden!
Ed hugged Mattie, and said: "It's okay, this'll be JUST FINE".
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