Cumin chicken bones

In which I attempt to explain a strange-sounding but revelatory dish.

First experience: Yesterday
Location: Shenyang Restaurant in San Gabriel
Cost: $4.98

During one of my family's early visits to this Dongbei* restaurant, we were halfway through our meal when we noticed that one particular dish was on everyone else's table, but not on ours. It looked like a pile of dark brown meat and bones, and the other diners seemed to relish picking through it. We felt left out and resolved to try it the next time.

Yesterday, back at Shenyang, we ordered the dish -- translated as Cumin Chicken Bones -- along with some sesame-and-salt flatbread. It was even better than I could have anticipated. Two chicken "frames," the skinny portions of the chicken left over after the "best" parts -- breasts, wings, legs and thighs -- are removed. The frames are chopped into hunks small enough to be handled with chopsticks, then simmered in a sauce of sugar, soy, and perhaps fermented bean, all flavored with a generous amount of cumin seeds. On the plate, the simmering liquid has become a sticky reduction that clings to tender bits of meat, skin, and cartilage. Had it been served on a more fleshy cut of meat, the sauce would have been pushed to the sidelines. Here, nibbling on the bony pieces, you revel in the sauce itself.

The dish does not look attractive, and neither will you as you are eating it. The only way to eat it is to lift a hunk of bone with your chopsticks and attack with your teeth, tongue and lips. How much of the fragrant meat you get depends somewhat on skill, and somewhat on patience, much like picking through a steamed Maryland blue crab.

One more reason this dish seemed so delicious: It was another example of how Chinese cooking, like other old cuisines around the world, has found ways for people to enjoy every last part of each animal we use for our nourishment.

*Dongbei literally means "East-North" and refers to the three northeasternmost provinces in China, bordered by Russia to the north and Korea to the east.