the lone rhinoceros

The last, lone rhinoceros left Gilbert at 10:10 PM MST Friday, February 29 on a flight bound for Minneapolis-St. Paul where he'll catch a Greyhound Bus to his final destination in Morris, Minnesota. In Morris, the last rhinoceros will turn himself into campus police at the University of Minnesota-Morris for incarceration and tests and an attempt to reproduce with chickens to bear progeny extending his particular line of rhinoceros. Success is questionable and a freak of nature probable.
But, if failure is the result, it doesn't mean you should give up chicken. Some chickens are still bred, born and slaughtered in the old fashioned way with an axe, boiling cauldron of water and propane torch. The free range chicken of yesteryear still pecks away in the barnyard of your uncles and cousins, is stowed away in your freezer or canned in large mason jars. All to good effect. Soups are made; casseroles and stews competing for attention.
Chicken is good food for the most part. Pieces and parts provide great variety. Beaks and feet are sold to Asian markets where chickens are ubiquitous, though beakless. Plentiful like the duck, but with less risk of bird flu.
In Ulan Bator, I once sampled chicken cake; a light, frothy affair with a chicken broth meringue. In Thailand, I tasted toasted chicken beaks. Crunchy, acrid and sweet, like burnt toast and honey. In the deep south of America, I feasted on a buttery chicken feet stew with okra and a poke salad. In the Philippines, I learned that unborn chicken balut is better than duck balut. I like to steam my balut with mixed vegetables and rice in my rice cooker. Crunchy, chewey, putridly savory just like you mom's balut with canned tomatoes and watermelon pickles.
But this all goes without saying if the lone rhinoceros is extinct, we have little choice but to stick with chicken and the chicken manufacturers will be congratulated for their persistence and faith. Chik-Fil-A's will continue to prosper and we'll get the chicken we want without regard to the rhinoceros.