Chicken Feet

A few years back I spent a week in the Dominican Republic.  We stayed with a family.  One of the meals they served us a Dominican "delicacy."

          Chicken Feet.

I did my best, and I did eat my fair share, but I did not enjoy it.  After all, where I come from, that is the part of the chicken that we throw in the garbage.  Which got me thinking...

          One culture's delicacy is another culture's refuse.

Years later I invited a friend to come and share at a class I teach.  This friend is someone I respect, he has lots of wisdom, and experience.  He is, however, from another culture.  I shared with him the background of the people in the class, I shared the content of the class up to that point, and I gave him a topic to share on.  The class was horrible.

As I reflected on the mess, I realized that he had brought us some ideas and practices that were very helpful and powerful within his own culture.  However, they were ideas and practices that we had explicitly rejected as unfit for our use.  At least in this case, his culture's delicacy was our culture's refuse.

Which of course, got me thinking about how much of what I think of as a delicacy would be seen as refuse in my friend's culture.