Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Actually, here in Gainesville, GA, it's Bob, our elderly neighbor and owner of one million laying hens. Yes, I said, ONE MILLION.
Bob is just one of many bird barons who populate Georgia. Poultry and eggs are the number one agricultural product, with a annual value of over $4 billion. The industry as a whole, including processing and supporting industries, has an economic impact of $18 billion.
Gainesville owes so much to poultry power they erected a statue of a rooster in the middle of downtown. The founding father as it were, since roosters are neither eaten nor lay eggs.
And in Georgia, chicken's not just for lunch or dinner anymore. Chick-fil-A, a fast food chain based in Atlanta, serves chicken on a biscuit for breakfast. I guess at Chick-fil-A, it's chicken instead of an egg. But people love it. Ex-residents speak of it fondly. Colleagues of mine made a stop before a morning meeting, talking about it as though it were a special treat. "You've never been?" they asked me in amazement.
We took a trip over one lunchtime to see what all the "clucking" was about. We weren't quite ready to try breakfast. Sadly, we were both under-whelmed by our grilled chicken on a bun with limp lettuce and failed to see what inspired such devotion.
But the eggs Bob gave us? Those were egg-stra-special.
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