Tom Gibbs stuck in a «delicious» chicken leg. Photo: Jeff Pugh
From sweeper to snood, football loves whimsy. In this era of microscopic, marginal gains, few areas are as ripe for exploitation as nutrition. This usually means newly appointed managers are playing it tough by banning ketchup, but some options are more to the left.
Take Andros Townsend: he has been to 14 different clubs in his 14-year career. Currently showing signs of renaissance at the age of 32 at Luton Town, the striker earlier this week spoke about lifestyle changes that are helping him feel energized. Of course, these include hyperbaric chambers and red light therapy, but Townsend's main area of innovation comes during lunchtime.
«There's probably about five or six chicken legs every night,» he said on Nightclub 5 Live's Monday this week. «It's 20 minutes in the steamer and you'll get it.»
«Some people have long nails» 🍗
«Are they chewy or crunchy?» — @markchapman 🤢
🐓 @andros_townsend eats chicken legs for tea every evening
📲: https://t.co/bwOLfi4Imu#BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/TnrYfsTA12
— BBC 5 Live Sport (@5liveSport), November 14, 2023
Amid some conversational red flags, including «mainstream media» and doing «some research,» Townsend questioned the wisdom of daily supplements in pill and shot form and wanted to focus on food instead. According to him, there is a lot of collagen in chicken feet, and it is useful for muscle recovery. Townsend now feels “absolutely amazing.”
“You eat a chicken breast, you eat a chicken wing, you eat every part of a chicken, but you want to turn your nose up to the drumstick? Come on.”
He'll be among friends at Fowl, a new chicken restaurant just south of Piccadilly Circus that promises a beak-to-toe omnivorous menu, where I sampled one of Townsend's favorite appetizers. If Townsend ever wants to take a break from his anhedonic hovering regime, he can try a chicken drumstick here at Chicken Drum Corn Dog.
“We scrub the foot, we trim and trim the nails neatly, we do the manicure,” says Fowl's executive chef John Bowring, unpromisingly. He removes the thigh and leg from the bones, brines them, rolls them out, and then dips them in the dough. It is steamed for three hours, deep-fried, and then the exposed leg is fried with a blowtorch at the intact end. Bowring says they sell one for each table they serve.
“It's one of those things that gets ignored. In some places they are used as a broth, which makes an excellent gelatinous mass.” What separates a good chicken leg from a bad one? “Basically, one that doesn’t smell bad. You want a fairly plump leg with all the bones intact. It doesn't have too many feathers.»
«If you eat an entire chicken leg, you'll get a decent source of collagen.»
It's not appetizing yet. But surely any disgust will be outweighed by the life-giving ability of a chicken leg, even a little beaten and deep-fried?
«It's plausible, but I think it's perhaps a little misleading,» says Vicky Newbold, a registered dietitian at the British Institute of Sport. “If you eat a whole chicken leg and a few pieces, you're eating a pretty decent source of dietary collagen. I guess the question then becomes: does dietary collagen help with muscle soreness?
“We tend to see collagen being researched and used for joint functionality, reducing joint pain, and supporting ligament and tendon repair or remodeling.” .
So, technically, Townsend may have been a little wrong about collagen's benefits for muscle recovery, but there are promising signs that it may help in other areas, including knee ligament injury recovery, if used in combination with the right exercises . He may also be right to buy collagen instead of supplements, as this avoids the risk of any supplements violating anti-doping rules.
“In sports nutrition, we try to focus on nutrition first, but not just food,” Newbold says. «There are times when supplements are necessary, but if you can get the nutrients you need from food, that would be the preferred approach.»
Back at Fowl, Bowring places the leg and its more attractive boneless part on a red and white napkin and silver tray. I spend time noticing these things so I can put off eating. As brave as I hope the chicken is, I come in throwing punches from my weaker left hand to my right, paying homage to Townsend. As our photographer takes the photo, three words flash through my head: “Don’t do this, Miliband.”
Tom is served the latest culinary craze that has yet to sweep the country. Photo: Jeff Pugh 
Tom takes a close look at his lunch before getting to work. Photo: Jeff Pugh 
Some parts of Tom's lunch were crispier than others. Photo: Jeff Pugh
How much you like your chicken leg will depend on where you stop eating your chicken wing. If you, like me, face the right amount of resistance, you can fight. The skin is pleasantly crisp and, when the second finger half gives way, chewable, the size and color of which is reminiscent of a Nick Knuck, which may not be the culinary comparison Bowring was hoping for. You could join them if you had to. If only this was the only bar snack on a long vacation. I like this much better than the pork scratch.
There's not much meat here, and the promised collagen is all too noticeable in the pale tendons that connect the component parts of the foot. All is well until I unwisely look closely at the end of the foot. It's definitely a finger and definitely a nail. I'm thinking about that video of Paul Scholes biting his daughter off. I put the chicken foot aside.
It's unlikely to be part of my regular rotation, but who knows, maybe my knees feel more flexible this morning than without it? Andros may be right. Now I'll try his next recommendation: lamb heart.
@thetelegraph ️ Premier League footballers eat chicken legs to extend their careers. Senior sports writer Tom Gibbs sets off to find out what all the fuss is about… #football #luton #chick #fyp ♬ original audio — The Telegraph
For more information on wellbeing and performance, contact Vicky Newbold: www. newboldnutrition.com
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