Does anyone understand the French? Charles de Gaulle, a guy you might have thought had a handle on his countrymen, once complained about the impossibility of unifying a country that produces "over two hundred varieties of cheeses." Myself, I’m intrigued by the fact that a standard French cartoon depiction of the French – you’ll see it everywhere over there, from comic strips to subway safety posters – shows them as oversized bunnies in overalls.

I find it hard to figure out how a people who choose to caricature themselves consistently as Bugs B. dressed up in Oshkosh B’Gosh can eat rabbit with such frequency and nonchalance. Seems a bit cannibalistic, somehow. They even mix it into their catfood. (Remember, it’s actually a rodent.) Anyhow, on my several visits there I’ve taken the opportunity to snack on Thumper. In case you were wondering, to humans (and, I assume, to cats as well), it tastes - as does everything exotic - like chicken.

Which reminds me: I have a son, my only child, who’s no child anymore; he’ll turn thirty in May. Edward’s a working chef in Manhattan; this past year, he and the restaurant where he cooks - Opaline, in Manhattan’s East Village - earned rave reviews from the New York Times and various other magazines and newspapers. As you can imagine, I was quite proud.

Ed didn’t learn any of that from me, but - since I raised him right here in Stapleton as a single parent from the time he was ten years old - I did set the example of a man in the kitchen, which may have meant something in that regard. (A few years after he got into the business, some friends relayed a comment he’d made about my culinary skills. "My dad doesn’t cook gourmet stuff," Ed told them; "he makes food people like to eat.")

When Ed was young, I cooked a lot of kid meals: tuna casserole, macaroni and cheese, pigs in blankets, burgers and fries, pork chops in cream-of-mushroom soup – what some people nowadays call "comfort foods." Usually I’d make enough for both of us and eat these along with him – too much trouble to cook two different meals. But once a week, to save the sanity of my taste buds, I’d whip up something a bit more complex for myself.

When I served myself those more sophisticated dishes, Ed, who was at the stage of suspicion of anything unfamiliar, but was also insatiably curious, would always ask, "What’s it taste like, Dad?" I’d cut a piece for him and hold it out to him on a fork, pointing silently at the morsel. Invariably, he’d push it away. "No! What’s it taste like?"

I was trying (unsuccessfully, I might add) to get him to understand that direct experience was the best path to sensory knowledge. If I’d been more bent on persuading him to try something new, a better strategy probably would have been to provide him with the most reassuring food analogy in our culture: "It tastes just like chicken."

As a friend of mine was fond of saying, just about everything exotic in the meat category – from rattlesnake to frogs’ legs – commonly gets compared to chicken, but we never turn the comparison around. ("Try some of this chicken – tastes just like snakes and frogs.") I’ve been thinking about this lately, in relation my son’s eventual culinary success and my own abilities to "make food people like to eat," as well as to North America’s apparently endless appetite for new varieties of fast food that seem superficially different but basically remain the same. And I think I have a real contribution to make, so I’ve decided to put someone else’s money where my mouth is and seek out financial backers who’ll enable me to open the first in what I hope will be a nation-wide chain of restaurants I’m calling Al’s Tastes-Like-Chicken®.

Here’s my theory: We don’t much go for fancy foods and strange ingredients here in the States, especially in our diners. We want the dependable and predictable. At the same time, we long for new experiences and the trappings of high culture. Why not combine the two impulses? At Al’s Tastes-Like-Chicken® you’ll be able to try unusual stuff – snake, frog, turtle, eel, squirrel - secure in the advance knowledge that it’ll taste exactly like stuff you’ve eaten before.

Sounds like a perfect combination to me. I think everyday people, even kids, will go for this in a big way – much more than they would for my aforementioned friend’s own improbable business plan, which was to popularize organ meats by vending them from Mr. Softee-type trucks, cruising residential areas and offering items like "Cup-o’-brains" and "Liver-on-a-stick."

So if the much-heralded upturn in the economy has left you with a little moolah to spare after the holidays, and you’re looking to invest in an idea that just might pay off big-time, think of this one. In any case, keep an eye out for us; we could be coming to your neighborhood soon. And remember our all-American slogan at Al’s Tastes-Like-Chicken®: "Whatever you order, it’ll taste just like chicken – or it’s all-you-can-eat time, on the house!"