Michael Robinson recently went to an interesting Toronto restaurant called Ten Mile Aroma, whose menu can be found online here. Micheal's attention was drawn to these two menu items:
137. Fried Spicy Chicken Framework (làchǎo jījià 辣炒鸡架)
138. Chicken Racks with Soya Sauce (jiàng jījià 酱鸡架)
According to Michael, a reviewer who visited the restaurant commented that he asked about the Chicken Framework and got the reply "Just bones, no meat". Michael says he's sure that he saw someone order one of these, and they brought a plate of chicken bones over to him.
Neither from the Chinese term itself nor from the English translations (both on the menu and online) is it very self-evident just what is at issue here. Why would anyone want to order a plateful of chicken bones?
It's only the last two characters that are causing a problem in menu items 137 and 138; they are jījià 鸡架, where jī 鸡 means "chicken" and jià 架 is short for gǔjià 骨架 ("skeleton") or jiàzi 架子 ("frame[work]; shelf; carcass; stand; rack").
So, when it comes to Chinese cuisine, what, after all, does jījià 鸡架 signify? Michael says that the Ten Mile Aroma restaurant specializes in northeastern Chinese cuisine, but that's not much help when it comes to figuring out what a jījià 鸡架 is in Chinese cooking. I asked some of my Chinese friends and students from the northeast what jījià 鸡架 meant to them, and they didn't give me a definitive answer. I then inquired of Angela (Tan Yan) Chang, a master chef, what she does with a jījià 鸡架, and she says the only use she knows is to boil it for soup stock. I've actually seen her do that, and have eaten various delicious dishes that she has made with the broth from a jījià 鸡架.
If you search online for Chinese dishes made with jījià 鸡架 or jījiàzi 鸡架子 (the extended form of the term; -zi 子 is a noun suffix), you get an amazing assortment of concoctions where it is used with winter melon, cabbage, noodles, bean crud / curd, and all sorts of other ingredients, made savory by cooking in various ways with a variety of spices, herbs, condiments, and so on.
For Ben Zimmer, there's even a gōngfu jījià 功夫鸡架 ("kung fu chicken whatever"); see this Language Log post for the origins and diverse meanings of the term gōngfu 功夫, AKA "kung fu" in English.
When all is said and done, however, what is a jījià(zi) 鸡架(子)? Put simply, it is the main body of the chicken without the head, neck, wings, and drumsticks. That sounds very much like a carcass, which may be defined as the dead body of an animal, especially one that has been slaughtered for food, with the head, limbs, and entrails removed. But I don't think any English speaking person would feel good about being served a carcass for lunch or dinner, so that's not a viable option as a menu translation for jījià(zi) 鸡架(子).
No matter what, a jījià(zi) 鸡架(子) still has plenty of meat on it, so if anybody serves you a dish with jījià(zi) 鸡架(子) as its main ingredient and all they give you is a pile of chicken bones, you can tell them to take it back.
[Thanks to Fangyi Cheng and Rebecca Fu]
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