Chicken Lips and Rocks

This past week Adam wanted to bring a bit of his own family history to the table so he offered to cook dinner for me for a change. Since he will be the first to tell you that he knows how to cook a mean Bagel Bite and little else, I was curious to hear exactly what he had in mind.

His idea was to recreate a typical meal that his grandmother had eaten during the depression. I gave him points for the neat idea and asked what was on the menu.

Chicken lips and rocks of course. Sounds delicious.

Come to find out, chicken “lips” are actually the scraps that would ordinarily be thrown away after trimming a piece of chicken, rather than a specific body part. Since it was important during that time to not let a single thing go to waste, these scraps were saved and set aside in the freezer.

Once there was a decent stockpile of “lips,” they would then be defrosted, coated with flour and fried in a pan with olive oil and white table wine. According to Grandma Taverna, an important step of making chicken lips is to also drink the wine while you’re cooking.


The chicken lips would usually be served over rice with asparagus on the side. I always thought asparagus was somewhat of a luxury item, but the Tavernas were lucky enough to have a constant supply in their garden.

Their family also made their own butter, which would explain why Adam’s grandmother said to use a whole stick to cook the asparagus with.

The rocks as it turned out were actually cookies made with dates and walnuts and were not as hard as their name would suggest since they too contained a surprising amount of butter.

While cooking our depression dinner, Adam learned a valuable lesson about rice. Unlike pasta, rice needs to be covered, should not be stirred while cooking and has a definite rice-to-water ratio that must be adhered to.

After cooking for 45 minutes and still left with excess water, we shamed our depression era ancestors and threw the rice out.

Whether good or bad, food is not only a necessity, it is a tradition and an art form that tells our history and brings us together. In light of this, Adam has not been kicked out of the kitchen yet.