History Main / TastesLikeChicken

* In a UK Coke ad following the launch of a rival British cola with a big ad campaign. Kid takes unbranded cola bottle from refrigerator, tastes, goes "Mmm, tastes like... chicken." The new cola kind did it, too, particularly once the idea had got in your head.

* Creator/EddieIzzard has a bit about how humans taste of chicken, in his Dressed to Kill. Later it comes up as "Tastes of human" while pretending to serve chicken.

* In ''WebVideo/FreemansMind'' Gordon goes on a long rant about people who say every new meat tastes like chicken and concludes the alien he fried [[TastesLikeFeet tastes like grasshoppers]].

'''Riley:''' Yes, but a very specific type of chicken. My palette is highly discerning.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Madagascar}}'':

* In ''VideoGame/{{ADOM}}'', eating a the corpse of a giant bat gets you a message "Tastes like chicken."
* ''Videogame/Afterlife1996'' has one of its IronicHell punishments a Gluttony structure based around rat meat. The flavor text subverts the trope: "For the past 10 billion years, the waitresses, cooks, managers, and janitors of the Pandimensional House of Vermin franchise have zealously exploited a simple, unspoken truth: Rats do NOT taste 'just like chicken.'"

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' episode "[[Recap/CSINYS02E15 Fare Game]]" involving exotic cuisine made from centipedes, tarantulas, etc:
-->'''Tony Collins:''' Tastes like chicken, right?\\
'''Danny Messer:''' Nah, not really.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Spiritfarer}}'', one patient at Overbrook Hospital asks Stella if they can take a small bite of her, and if she says yes, the patient nibbles her and remarks that she tastes like chicken along with a few spices.

* ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' episode "Fare Game" involving exotic cuisine made from centipedes, tarantulas, etc:

'''Danny Messer:''' No.

* In ''Film/TheWayBack'', while CrossingTheDesert, our half-dead heroes manage to kill a snake.
-->"Tastes like chicken."
-->"Yeah. A big, black, poisonous chicken with no legs."

* ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'': The basilisk and cockatrice. Makes sense since they're both part chicken.

* A citizen of [[ShiftingSandLand Grescal]] in ''VideoGame/DungeonSiege'' talks about unseen fauna called Gikk, which he says are easy to catch and taste like chicken.
* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoLibertyCityStories'': Donald Love said that [[ImAHumanitarian human's meat]] taste like chicken.
* When you eat the old man's lunch in ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', [[{{Woolseyism}} Ted Woolsey]] says it "''tastes like chicken!''" [[spoiler:Just don't do it before you face the judge...]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' uses this as the slogan for Iguana Bob's [[HumanResources iguana-on-a-stick]]. Also "Tastes like chicken" quote appears in "Snake Eater"[[labelnote:*]]poison resistance bonus[[/labelnote]] perk description in the [[VideoGame/Fallout1 first]] and the [[VideoGame/Fallout2 second]] game.
* Used in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater''. Justified because snake does really taste like chicken.
** More like turkey, actually.
* Parodied in ''VideoGame/ShadowWarrior1997'' when you beat one of giant bosses, your character tastes whats left of it and declares that it tastes like chicken.
* In the ''VideoGame/SamAndMax'' game The ''Mole, The Mob, and The Meatball'', Max finds that webcams taste like chicken and goes great with ketchup.
* In ''VideoGame/PuzzleQuest'', when Drong is asked to describe the taste of '''volcanic rock''', of all things, he says it "tastes like chicken. Hard chicken."

* In the second mission of ''VideoGame/{{Warbears}}'', if Kla gets hit by a slime ball, one of the things he says is, "Tastes like the chicken I had yesterday."
* In ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'', there are Louie's entries on how to cook a number of the enemies that the group comes across. One is the Mamuta, a giant... thing that looks like a whole bird ready for roasting. The cooking entry for this particular enemy says this trope word-for-word... [[ZigZaggedTrope while claiming it's inedible]].
--> '''Louie's Notes:''' Inedible. Tastes like chicken.
* In ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'', there is a side mission titled "Tastes Like Chicken". It involves a [[EvilChef chef who has gone crazy in the zombie outbreak]], and attempts to prepare [[ImAHumanitarian a meal of human flesh]] to impress the important food critic that he still thinks is coming to his restaurant.
* There is an achievement in ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' called "Tastes Like Chicken", earned by eating 50 different kinds of food.
* ''[[VideoGame/{{Tribes}} Tribes II]]'' - "[[ImAHumanitarian Humans taste like]]... chicken." as a line from the bioderms.
* ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' - if Fenris is a Rival at the end of his personal plot:

* Referenced in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'' during James and Garrus' brag-off.

* A quest chain in ''VideoGame/SpacePiratesAndZombies'' has you pick up meat substitutes for the "Moon Burger" fast food chain. Toxic waste is used for beef and zombie meat is used for chicken.
* ''Videogame/Afterlife1996'' has one of its IronicHell punishments a Gluttony structure based around rat meat. The flavor text subverts the trope: "For the past 10 billion years, the waitresses, cooks, managers, and janitors of the Pandimensional House of Vermin franchise have zealously exploited a simple, unspoken truth: Rats do NOT taste 'just like chicken.'"

* The ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' episode "The Swamp" has Due and Tho muse what their current prey (Momo) tastes like ("Bet he tastes a lot like [[MixAndMatchCritters possum chicken]]!" "[[YourAnswerToEverything You think everything tastes like possum chicken!]]"). [[BrickJoke Later on]], they feed Sokka some possum chicken and he says it tastes like Arctic Hen.

* On ''WesternAnimation/TheRealGhostbusters'' episode where Egon [[FreakyFridayFlip switches bodies with Slimer]], he observes that everything Slimer eats tastes like chicken.
* Said exactly by Matter Eater Lad from the Legion Of Superheroes when he eats a giant alien beast.
* The second episode in ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'', when it emerged that Jade had accidentally swallowed the Rooster Talisman (which had wound up in the soup she was wolfing down at the time) in the previous episode:
-->'''Jade:''' Umm... Tastes like chicken.
* ''WesternAnimation/SpaceGhostCoastToCoast'' had some fun with this when Space Ghost was interviewing Martin Yan of Yan Can Cook. As Yan prepared a turkey for him, they discussed how this saying makes no sense, "I hate when people say "This tastes like chicken." It doesn't. Chicken tastes like chicken."
* [[WesternAnimation/BeavisAndButthead Beavis]] says this when he and Butt-head attempt to lick toads to get high.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/ThePowerpuffGirls'' episode "[[http://powerpuff.wikia.com/wiki/Bubble_Boy Bubble Boy]]", in which Boomer of the Rowdyruff Boys is held captive by Professor Utonium and company. Bubbles was sent as a replacement for Boomer, and at one point, Bubbles ''had to eat a cockroach so the Rowdyruff Boys won't suspect that she isn't the real Boomer''. After Bubbles catches the other 2 Rowdyruff Boys (they escaped though), Professor Utonium learns about the cockroach incident and apologizes to Bubbles.
-->'''Professor Utonium''': I'm sorry you had to eat a cockroach.

* At the end of the ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode "Every Meat Burritos", Mordecai, Rigby, Muscle Man and High Five Ghost [[ShaggyDogStory are disappointed]] that the titular burrito combining so many meats together just tastes like chicken. (By comparisons, when ''WebVideo/BingingWithBabish'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf4wwXM2o_M made]] [[{{defictionalization}} the closest thing to an Every-Meat Burrito]] possible, he said the mixture of meats as they cook "[[ItTastesLikeFeet smells like death]]" and couldn't swallow a single bite.)
* Parodied in one episode of WesternAnimation/CatDog, at the begining of the episode; Dog is chasing a pigeon that he apparrently thinks is a chicken (he keeps repeating the word "Chicken!" throughout the chase) and when he finally eats the bird, he says "Tastes just like... pigeon."
* In the ''WesternAnimation/RocketPower'' episode "Welcome to the Club," Twister and Sam are trying some new delicacies at the Ocean Shores Beach Club. Sam tries some tripe, and says it "tastes like chicken and salty marshmallows." He and Twister initially enjoy it, but are then [[IAteWhat grossed out]] to learn it comes from sheep stomach.
* Not a chicken example, but in Terra's debut episode in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'', the Titans invite Terra over to Titans Tower, and Starfire offers her some Glorg (to everyone else's disgust). Terra tries it and comments that it tastes like sushi mixed with ice cream.
* ''WesternAnimation/{{Arthur}}'': In "Carried Away", Dr. Yowl explains that his space snacks allow whoever eats them to breathe in the atmospheres of other planets, and that they taste like chicken.
* ''WesternAnimation/MutantLeague'': One episode has some mutants stranded in a blizzard long enough for some of them to consider eating Razor to survive but Kang convinces them to settle for his tail. When this is referenced in a later episode, one of them says it tasted like chicken.
* ''WesternAnimation/CarmenSandiego'': When Zack (who hates fish) has to go undercover at a fancy dinner party, Carmen tells him that he ''has to'' eat whatever's served, and if it's something he doesn't like, he should pretend it's chicken. Player cheerfully notes that the entree was poultry, so it ''did'' taste like chicken. The bad news is that the palate cleanser before dessert is caviar, and the "tastes like chicken" trick stops working.

-->'''Angel''' My parents were great. [[ImAHumanitarian Tasted a lot like chicken.]]

* ''{{Series/Supernatural}}'': After getting captured by the [[WickedWitch witch]] from ''Literature/HanselAndGretel'' in the "[[Recap/SupernaturalS10E12AboutABoy About A Boy]]" episode, Dean tries to buy time by asking if people taste like chicken.
-->'''Dean''': So, uh, is it worth it? I mean, word on the street is people kind of taste like chicken.\\

* [[UsefulNotes/SnailsAndSoOn Frog legs]]. They're actually really good and taste '''exactly''' like chicken, but with the texture of fish.

This idea was tested on the Food Network show ''Food Detectives'', and found to be true for almost all meat from animals that don't have hooves. The scientific rationale is that the muscles are made mostly of fast-twitch fibers and lacking in slow-twitch, so basically any small and light animal that's not a fish will tend to taste close enough to each other that the brain's sense memory defaults to the most commonly-eaten meat of that type -- a sort of culinary version of SmallReferencePools. For most people, that means chicken. Fast-twitch fibers are the vanilla ice cream of the flesh-product world, and don't really have much of a flavor to start with. It holds especially true if the animals in question are relatively young and haven't picked up a lot of environmental flavors; alligator tastes fishier if the animal's been swimming around eating seafood for a few years, and most market chickens are about 6-8 months old when they're shipped.

Alice is trying to get Bob to eat [[AlienLunch a new meal that people don't usually eat]]. When Bob finally gives in, and eats what's unfamiliar to him, he immediately proclaims, "Mmmm... [[IDoNotLikeGreenEggsAndHam Tastes like chicken]]!" In short, practically everything tastes like chicken in Fiction Land.

* In Shanghai, P.J. O'Rourke was invited to try a shotglass full of cobra blood. His verdict? "Tastes a little like chicken... blood."
** Snake meat ''tastes'' almost exactly like chicken, though the texture is very different.

* Subverted for human flesh. [[http://archive.wired.com/table_of_malcontents/2006/11/robot_identifie/ We actually taste like pork.]][[note]]Human flesh has often been called the "long pork," so perhaps we didn't need a robot to tell us[[/note]]. This could possibly be explained by the fact that pigs are near perfect human analogs. That's why they always use pig carcasses on ''Series/MythBusters''. Some have also described human flesh as tasting like [[http://web.archive.org/web/20080202122009/http://food.oregonstate.edu/ref/culture/taboo_allen.html veal.]] Apparently, black people taste sweet, while white people taste salty. But surprisingly, [[EatsBabies babies don't actually taste better]]. They taste like fish.
** Well, [[ComicallyMissingThePoint unless you like fish over pork]].

*** Greg Foot, in ''The Secrets of Everything'', had his thigh biopsied then cooked the tissue. It smelled (and looked) like beef, but the analysed odours indicated a mix of meat flavours including chicken.
** As pigs are the only ''omnivorous'' mammals most people have actually tasted, it's not that strange that humans (also omnivores) would taste more like them than like other edible livestock.

* Also subverted for alligators; most people who've eaten alligator say it tastes more like fish than chicken, although the ''texture'' does remind them of chicken. That being said, alligators ''eat'' fish, and presumably the fishy taste comes through there (baby alligator is noted to be non-fishy; conversely, chickens fed fish meal generally end up tasting fishy).
** Texture-wise, boiled crocodile is closer to pork.
* Rabbit tastes like chicken, so does iguana.
** Some people think rabbit tastes more like something between beef ''and'' chicken.
** American astronaut Pete Conrad commented that iguana tastes rather like chicken during a retelling of his time in survival training.
* Seeing as how avians and reptiles have a relatively recent common ancestor, it makes perfect sense that lizards and squamates taste like chicken. (Pork, beef, and various other large ungulates not tasting like each other seems to be representative of slow-twitch muscles having developed somewhat differently in each lineage, while fast-twitch muscles seem to be conserved across the superclass Tetrapoda-- which is how such widely disparate animals as frogs and rabbits[[note]]Which are more closely related to ''humans'' than anything that isn't a primate or almost a primate[[/note]] can both taste like chicken, as being small, quick, leaping animals, frogs and rabbits both have far greater need of fast-twitch muscle than slow-twitch.)

* Unripe jackfruits have been known to taste like chicken, and are sometimes used as a meat substitute by vegetarians. (''Ripe'' jackfruit tastes like jackfruit, or for those who've never had the actual fruit, Juicy Fruit gum.) By the same token, breadfruit, when roasted, smells and tastes a lot like bread.
* Subverted with mouse and a few other small rodents (e.g. dormouse): as found by Heston Blumenthal, they taste like pork. (Again, slow-twitch muscles are implicated; mice, though small, run rather differently than their cousins, the rabbits and hares.)
* Inverted by exotic bovines, such as yaks and bison, which instead taste like beef. Although be warned-- elderly bison can taste like ''mind-blowingly strong'' beef.
* The Roman poet Horace ridiculed the popularity of serving peacocks at Roman feasts, saying that the birds tasted like chicken and making this trope OlderThanFeudalism.

* In ''VideoGame/Pikmin2'', there are Louie's entries on how to cook a number of the enemies that the group comes across. One is the Mamuta, a giant... thing that looks like a whole bird ready for roasting. The cooking entry for this particular enemy is: "Inedible. [[ExtremeOmnivore Tastes like chicken]]."
* In ''VideoGame/DeadRising2'', there is a side mission titled "Tastes Like Chicken." It involves a [[EvilChef chef who has gone crazy in the zombie outbreak]], and attempts to prepare [[ImAHumanitarian a meal of human flesh]] to impress the important food critic that he still thinks is coming to his restaurant.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In ''Machinima/FreemansMind'' Gordon goes on a long rant about people who say every new meat tastes like chicken and concludes the alien he fried [[TastesLikeFeet tastes like grasshoppers]].

* This comment is so frequent that even Wiki/TheOtherWiki [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tastes_like_chicken has an entry for it]]. There are several explanations for it. One idea is that chicken has a bland taste because fat contributes more flavour than muscle (especially in the case of a lean cut such as a skinless chicken breast), making it a generic choice for comparison.

Contrast with ItTastesLikeFeet. See also CluckingFunny.

* In an episode of ''Series/MyHero'', George gets some GM Food from his home planet which allows anything to taste like anything (e.g. something that looks like brocoli but tastes like ice cream), the local crazy guy, Tyler, has a snack in George's house and says that it tastes just like chicken, only for it to be revealed by George that it is chicken.

* At the end of the ''WesternAnimation/RegularShow'' episode "Every Meat Burritos", Rigby and Mordecai [[ShaggyDogStory are disappointed]] that the titular burrito combining so many meats together just tastes like chicken. (By comparisons, when ''WebVideo/BingingWithBabish'' [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mf4wwXM2o_M made]] [[{{defictionalization}} the closest thing to an Every-Meat Burrito]] possible, he said the mixture of meats as they cook "[[ItTastesLikeFeet smells like death]]" and couldn't swallow a single bite.)

-> ''"Chicken: what everything exotic or visually off-putting invariably tastes like, only cheaper."''