About > Melinda Feucht
Melinda Feucht
{Web Editor}
I owe many childhood memories to a particular animal’s organ - the chicken liver. Having grown up in rural southwestern Minnesota, where the closest thing to a skyscraper is a wind energy turbine, I was always surrounded by people connected to the land. I spent many summers visiting my sister in Iowa whose husband is a farmer. Many of my firsts in life happened there: the first steering wheel I controlled was that of a tractor, the first birth I witnessed was that of a calf, and the first animal organ I tasted was chicken liver.
At first, the chicken liver was so disgusting it tasted good. But then it just started to taste good. The silky, yet gritty, texture gives me pleasure in itself. A few Christmases ago, my siblings even gave me a box of frozen chicken livers as a gift.
Another way in which the chicken ties me to my childhood is the memories I have of breading chicken for my parents at their small town café/grocery store, which Wal-Mart eventually ate up. I loved taking an active part in enhancing people’s experience of food— something I still value to this day.