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. People Who Love Chickens and Hate.

 Last year, a woman named Karen Davis started a national letter writing campaign to try to get This American Life to stop the very program we are broadcasting today—the annual Poultry Slam. In this portion of our show, she explains what it is that we just don't understand about poultry, and why the whole idea of this poultry show was wrong-headed from the start. (10 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