Why kienyeji chickens have become long on the beak and short on muscle

The once-delicious 'kienyeji' chicken has become long on the beak and short on muscle

Kienyeji (traditional) chicken is one of God's finest creations. Easy to hunt and breed, delicate on the tongue, good for the soul, money in the bank. Or so it used to be.

I speak with unrivalled authority on this matter, for I have devoured hundreds of chickens in my long and illustrious life. Fat ones, skinny ones. The angry, clever and brave. The docile, cowardly and foolish. I have eaten them all.

In fact, were some nutcase to rise beyond the ridge and claim that raw chicken treats hypertension and arthritis and cleans up the gut for good measure, I would defeather one and tear it up.

Beef isn't too bad, though, except that you never know what you are going to get, despite nagging the butcher to nip here and not there. You could eat beef ten times without once stumbling upon a decent cut. You only realise you got a raw deal when it's boiling, and the "aroma" stinks to high heaven. How does a carcass that looked so bewitching turn out gnarled, fatty, or dry and tasteless as a twig? Yet you are obliged to gnaw through that chewy disaster, rage and disappointment writ on your face, until your next trip to that conman in a bloody "lab coat" who always promises the best cut, but delivers disaster.

As for fish, I once was quite the fishy man. I ate them with relish; even the little, stinky ones. Fish was king, good for the brain, they said. Until very fishy fish started turning up all over, including in Kisumu and Mombasa of all places. Then came pond-bred fish. Straight from the Lake, they said. But why do they feel and taste like cacti, and what is this rumour about recycled oil, from vandalised transformers?

But such was the desire to nourish my brain that I ploughed on, undeterred, until I ate fish at a fancy restaurant in Nairobi and ended up crying in the toilet for days. Like literally.

So, kienyeji chicken it is - except the good ones have become ridiculously scarce. Villages, which used to breed fat, brilliant chickens, have gone to the dogs, and now they churn out noisy, quarrelsome bastards that are long on the beak and short on muscle and brain. Humph.