美国人一年大概能吃掉90亿只鸡，但不吃鸡脚。然而，中国南方人每年会进口大约30万吨鸡脚，食客们将这种美食称为“凤爪”，禽肉业则称其为“鸡爪”。此乃自由贸易中的天作之合。

Americans eat about 9bn chickens a year, but not the feet. Southern Chinese, on the other hand, import about 300,000 tonnes each year of the delicacy known to diners as “phoenix claws” and to the industry as “chicken paws”. It’s a match made in free trade heaven.

鸡脚并不是很贵。事实上，对大多数美国人而言，它们一文不值。然而，美国工业化养鸡业的利润如此紧巴巴，因此把鸡脚大批量冷冻起来卖给中国（而不是在美国丢弃），对利润有宝贵的改善。

Chicken feet are not particularly expensive. In fact, they are worth zero to most Americans. But margins on industrially farmed chicken in the US are so tight that selling the feet to China in enormous frozen blocks rather than throwing them away in the US makes for a nice difference in profits.

中国人不怎么吃熟制鸡肉（虽然随着城市的生活节奏日渐忙碌，加工食品的市场份额也在逐渐增加）。但中国的鸡肉加工商早就将目光瞄准了美国市场，中国政府也乐于用鸡脚撬开美国市场的大门。

The Chinese do not eat much pre-cooked chicken (although processed food is growing in market share as urban lifestyles get busier). But entrepreneurial Chinese chicken processors had set their sights on the US market, and Beijing was willing to leverage chicken feet to crack it open.

国外备受嫌弃，国内“春风得意”的食材还有很多...