"Ode to Chicken", "Ode to Okra", "The Preserving"

I must admit, initially I thought it was almost silly to be reading a poem dedicated to praising chicken and okra individually, but the more I thought about it, the more these two foods make up such a staple in my life, especially chicken. I guess we tend to overlook the presence of a food such as chicken that completely surrounds our lives. Just about every restaurant in the US contains some chicken item on the menu. It is our go-to meat. I actually thought it was kind of funny in the beginning of "Ode to Chicken" when the author talks about all of the other, rather strange, meats that remind him of chicken. I could relate to this because there have been multiple times when I have tried strange dishes and in the end, I have always compared them to chicken. Alligator meat, turtle, and frog legs simply taste like chewier chicken. One part that I found interesting was when the author pointed out that chicken retains the name of the animal while pork and beef do not. He seems to have a sort of respect for this meat and illustrates it in this way.  "Ode to Okra" reminded me of my mother and stories from her childhood. She grew up in north Louisiana and okra was a staple in their diet. Okra has been very familiar to me from a young age as it is very commonly incorporated into Louisiana dishes, particularly gumbo (seafood, sausage, or turkey). I personally have eaten it in many forms: fried, stewed, pickled, etc. I found it interesting how Young characterized the okra with human like actions and adjectives to describe the form that the okra takes when cooked or handled in different ways: "turned belligerent and too tough when ignored....weep when stewed"