Remnant of the pre-Depression era when “a chicken in every pot” was a symbol of prosperity, city chicken contains no chicken. It is pork or sometimes pork combined with beef or veal ground up and fashioned to resemble chicken: either as chunks on a skewer or as a mock drumstick. Its survival as a menu item, however tenuous, is ironic considering that chicken, once so dear, is now generally cheaper than pork and beef and frequently is substituted for them in sausage, chili, and burgers that yearn to be more nutritionally correct. A more subtle irony is that the modifier city once used to imply the seat of sophistication rather than a place of social decay. Nowadays, most mindful eaters prefer their food to be country-fresh, not city-slick. The few old-time places where we have encountered city chicken are blue-collar taverns and diners in western Pennsylvania and upstate New York as well as in West Virginia and Ohio.