When is a chicken your friend? When is he your dinner? TAL's former webmeister Elizabeth Meister talks with Kamiko Overs, an 11-year-old girl at the annual poultry exhibition run by the American Poultry Association in Columbus, Ohio.

Elizabeth Meister is a producer with Long Haul Productions. (4 minutes)

Act One. Still Life with Chicken.

Food writer Jonathan Gold tells what it's like to panfry a chicken—with a live chicken watching you the entire time. (14 minutes)

Act Two. Last Meal.

When Francois Mitterand knew he was about to die, he decided that the last food to cross his lips would be poultry...a tiny bird that is actually illegal to eat in France. It's a bird that, by tradition, is eaten with a napkin covering your head. Writer Michael Paterniti set out for France to try the contraband capon himself. (11 minutes)

Act Three. Chicken Diva.

Yet another testimony to the power chickens have over our hearts and minds. Contributing editor Jack Hitt reports on an opera about Chicken Little. It's performed with dressed-up styrofoam balls, it's sung in Italian, and it's—no kidding—able to make grown men cry. (13 minutes) 

Song: "Chickens," Harry Belafonte


Act Four. The Meaning of a Bird.

Writer David Rakoff explains how his life was changed—in a single evening—in a room of 5000 chickens. (13 minutes)

Song: "Chicken," Sly and the Family Stone