Chicken Bares All in The New York Times: A Recipe For Controversy?

Two weeks ago I picked up the Dining section of The Times and thought, "Well that's a bit much."

Here's why:

This picture ran below the headline, "Chicken's Attraction Is Truly Skin Deep." Now, I usually don't read the Dining section (the articles tend to be about food I can't eat and restaurants I can't afford to eat at), but something about this story drew me in.

The article itself is actually pretty disgusting - writer Sarah DiGregorio profiles a couple of chefs who incorporate chicken skin into their dishes. She also discusses the problem of shrinkage ("When you render the fat from a piece of skin, it shrivels to about half its size") and conjectures that the chicken skin mania is all a product of our collective obsession with over-the-top foods (for evidence see the KFC Double Down sandwich).

While I might not be one for chicken skin tacos, I didn't find the article or its photograph to be all that offensive. If anything, it got a laugh out of me at eight in the morning, which is no small feat.

But PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals - was less amused. In an interview with The Atlantic Wire the organization's founder and president Ingrid Newkirk called the photograph offensive, saying: "It's necrophilia. It's not amusing. It's just ghastly and sickly. It's not fitting for The New York Times."

The Gray Lady didn't offer The Atlantic Wire a response to Newkirk, but it did post a follow-up article about the photograph on its Lens blog.

Apparently Tiina Loite, a photo editor in the Dining section, and Fred Norgaard, an art director, came up with the idea for the shoot. Photographer Tony Cenicola then spent a day and a half trying to figure out how to make the chicken look alluring. Eventually he propped the chicken into its seductive pose using weights, chopsticks and wire; added some ambient lighting; and voilà - a chicken with attitude.

While the photograph wasn't the most enjoyable thing to look at over my morning cereal, PETA's overblown response is pretty ridiculous, if not very surprising. After all, PETA is almost as attention-crazed as Sarah Palin, evident in every advertisement in the organization's history (not to mention its forthcoming porn site, which will feature racy content alongside pictures of animals being abused).

That's not to say running the "Sexy Chicken" photograph was a good decision - it wasn't exactly The NY Times at its classiest. But at least it got me to read the Dining section. And when was the last time that part of the newspaper created a stir among anyone other than foodies?