March 28, 2024

Mock chicken legs

I can barely remember my mother making mock chicken legs. She also called them poor man’s chicken. We loved them, and scarfed mock chicken legs down like half-starved thieves. It was an old family recipe handed down from her mother, and her mother’s mother. The recipe no doubt came over on the boat from wherever, through Ellis Island, to the dinner tables of tradition-starved America.

Mock chicken legs, we also called them mock mocks, are made from pork steak cut into thin strips, rolled in cracker crumbs, then formed into cubes (a leg), and held together with a toothpick. They are then fried like chicken. You can even make gravy. It was a Depression Era food, a way of replacing more expensive and less available chicken with pork, like monk fish for lobster. In Iowa, there has always been an abundance of pork.

I had forgotten all about mock chicken legs. I don’t know why. All of my cooking skills today are derived from watching my mother cook, i.e., gravy, fried chicken, chili. Maybe it was because we started raising chickens of our own, and why make mock chicken legs (they’re a lot of work) when you can have the real thing?

So, when my second cousin, Pammie Salter, from Agency, called and said, “You wanna come over for mock chicken legs?” I asked, “What are those?” There was a moment of silence. She asked if I was having a senior moment. But, as she explained what mock chicken legs are, the memory of what looks and tastes like chicken, slowly came back, like grease oozing out of a pork chop.

So, I jumped at the chance. If nothing else, it would be another exercise in the sampling of Americana novelty food. After all, I had recently drug Ginnie kicking and screaming to Bruce’s Bar in Severance, Colo. (where the geese fly, and the bulls cry) for Rocky Mountain Oysters. So why not mock chicken legs?

By the way, it makes sense that a town called “Severance” would have a bar that served Rocky Mountain Oysters. Sever: get it? Ginnie did sample a Rocky Mountain Oyster, and liked it.

When Ginnie and I walked into Pammie’s house, the aroma took me back to my youth: mock chicken legs for Sunday dinner, rabbit hunting in the afternoon, and “The Ed Sullivan Show” with stove-top popcorn Sunday night. The mock chicken legs were just like I remembered, crispy, tasty and filling; like gold pouring through my body.

Here’s the recipe for Mock Chicken Legs: (Pammie didn’t have to kill me.) Flatten and cut pork steak into 2 inch strips. Trim the fat, or leave it on for flavor. Beat eggs and add a little milk. Crush up a couple of hand fulls of saltine crackers. Dip the pork steak in the egg, then the cracker crumbs. Roll up and secure with a toothpick. If you want to go the extra mile, add a wooden dowel and form a fake chicken leg. Brown on all sides in oil until very brown. Braise by adding water, and cover. Simmer until tender, one to two hours, adding water as needed (three to four times).

Pammie and I half-seriously discussed setting up a stand at the state fair and selling mock chicken legs. After all, fried-anything-on-a-stick goes over pretty well for Iowans, or wannabe Iowans.

Mock chicken legs are also known as “city chicken.” Whatever you call them, mock chicken legs are a novelty, and throwback to days when people made do with the little they had — which we need more of. Pammie sent a baker’s dozen home with us, along with her like-candy baked beans, smashed potatoes and coleslaw — a ready-to-go Pammie dinner without leaving the farm.

Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526 or email him at curtswarm@yahoo.com