Poultry Slam 1998

For Thanksgiving, the time of year when poultry consumption is highest, it's our annual program about turkeys, chickens, and fowl of all types. Prologue: When is a chicken your friend? When is he your dinner? This American Life's former webmeister Elizabeth Meister talks with Kamiko Overs, an 11-year-old girl at the annual poultry exhibition run by the American Poultry Association in Columbus, Ohio. Elizabeth Meister is a producer with Long Haul Productions. (5 minutes) Still Life With Chicken: Food writer Jonathan Gold tells what it's like to panfry a chicken—with a live chicken watching you the entire time. (14 minutes) Last Meal: When Francois Mitterand knew he was about to die, he decided that the last food to cross his lips would be poultry...a tiny bird that is actually illegal to eat in France. It's a bird that, by tradition, is eaten with a napkin covering your head. Writer Michael Paterniti set out for France to try the contraband capon himself. (11 minutes) People Who Love Chickens And Hate This American Life: Last year, a woman named Karen Davis started a national letter writing campaign to try to get This American Life to stop the very program we are broadcasting today—the annual Poultry Slam. In this portion of our show, she explains what it is that we just don't understand about poultry, and why the whole idea of this poultry show was wrong-headed from the start. (10 minutes) The Meaning Of A Bird: Writer David Rakoff explains how his life was changed—in a single evening—in a room of 5000 chickens. (13 minutes)