Blog backlog #3: chicken Maryland
By Todd Stadler · Wednesday, February 8, 2006 1:06am
(Part of a continuing series of writings that I've left unposted until such time as I'm completely uninspired to write anything new ... like now. This one is also Gerrytollian.)
Over a mildly disappointing lunch, Gerry Toll and I turned our discussion to that most common of themes in our conversations: weird foods. He told me of his trip to Malaysia, where he discovered to his surprise that there is a common dish there called "chicken Maryland".
Apparently, chicken Maryland is composed of separately fried items, among them chicken, onion (rings), french fries, and bananas. Maybe like a frito mixto from a parallel universe, but it's actually just from Malaysia.
Anyhow, nobody over there seems to think the name is strange. I'm not even sure they know that Maryland is one of these United States. Heck, I'm fairly certain some Americans don't know that.
Still, why Maryland? I could imagine someone in Malaysia cooking up a dish they called "Texas chicken", which would be spicy or perhaps served in a ten-gallon hat. But Maryland ... I have no preconceived notions of Maryland to which I could attach recipe suggestions. Perhaps the chicken is small and irregularly shaped?
And then, while pondering this mystery, it hit me. I asked Gerry if the chicken Maryland he had eaten ever had any apples in it. No, he said.
"Well, there you go, then," I said. "It's an-apple-less dish."
(For the aforementioned Americans who are ignorant about geography in general and Maryland in particular, Annapolis is the capitol of Maryland, and it is pronounced pretty much the same way as the admittedly-strained-for-humor phrase "an-apple-less". That said, I am not attempting to make a joke about strained apples in this parenthetical remark.)
Well! With a pun like that rolling effortlessly off my tongue, I felt like I was living in the pre-scripted world of some third-rate comic strip. However, when I said "an-apple-less", Gerry's hat did not fly off his head, nor was he forcibly tipped back in his chair. Oh well.