How Many Chickens and How Much Money Would It Take for Legislator Chen Po-wei, "Brother 3Q", to Make Good on His Boast of "Treating All Taiwanese to Chicken Cutlets"

After at-large councilor Wang Hao-yu was recalled by the people on January 16, 2021 (ROC year 110), a previous online taunt by Taichung’s 2nd district legislator Chen Po-wei—“if Wang Hao-yu, Huang Jie (Kaohsiung city councilor), and I myself are all recalled, I’ll treat all Taiwanese to a chicken cutlet”—was dug up and laid out in the sun for the public to scrutinize. It also left many people looking forward to the fastest chicken-eating Guinness World Record that might appear after Huang Jie and Chen Po-wei are recalled next.

Let’s do a simple calculation below to see, if Brother 3Q really makes good on his promise to treat all Taiwanese to chicken cutlets, how many chickens would be sacrificed in total, and roughly how much money Brother 3Q would need to prepare to afford the treat.

How Many Chicken Cutlets Can One Chicken Make?

McDonald’s fried chicken comes in three parts: besides the three-joint wing (Wing, commonly called chicken wing) and the 🍗 drumstick (Drumstick, commonly called chicken leg), there’s another part I love—the meaty, juicy chicken chunk meat, often mistaken for breast (Breast). Some people even specifically ask for breast meat when ordering, and get silently yelled at by the staff.

Actually that piece is also a leg part; its formal name is the (large) thigh (Thigh), the thickest piece where the drumstick meets the body, with abundant meat and tender texture—a must-order part for big eaters and gourmets. (Aside: fast-food places nowadays won’t accept requests for specific parts; sometimes getting all wings feels like being ripped off.)

I’d like to ask everyone: are you on team leg or team breast?

Take my family as an example—almost everyone is team leg, but I myself am a loyal team breast (never a fight when eating a whole chicken since childhood). This ratio, I believe, would also match the statistics of the larger group. Chicken breast is, in many people’s impression, synonymous with dry and tough. But poultry breast meat is actually called the finest meat in French cuisine—for example, pan-seared duck breast is one of the most representative dishes.

The ingredient used for fried chicken cutlets on the market is genuine chicken breast. After splitting a chicken’s breast from the center line of the breastbone, you get left and right breast meat; slice each breast horizontally once more, and you can make four chicken cutlets in total.

Assuming 15 million people (based on last year’s total votes for Tsai Ing-wen, Han Kuo-yu, and James Soong) would go to collect a chicken cutlet, then 3.75 million chickens would be needed to supply the amount of cutlet ingredients Chen Po-wei needs for the treat.

If you want to save some money, slice each breast one more time and coat the batter thicker, then only 2.5 million chickens would be needed to supply the meat required for the politician’s big bet.

According to a 2017 (ROC year 106) report by the Council of Agriculture of the ROC Executive Yuan, our country’s total annual production of white chickens and native chickens is about 320 million, fully able to handle the supply and demand of two to three million chickens.

How Much Would Chen Po-wei’s Chicken Cutlet Treat Cost

Since chicken cutlet prices vary across the country, and such a large-scale national-level chicken cutlet treat is the first of its kind in our hundred years since founding, I personally think the best solution is to have all chicken cutlet shops across the Taiwan-Penghu-Kinmen-Matsu region support simultaneously, relieving the tens of millions of people in a parallel operation, with the price at 80% of each shop’s original price (a thoughtful subsidy for the legislator) billed to Chen Po-wei—which would also earn a reputation for boosting local economies.

Taking the chicken cutlet price of 65 yuan at the most famous Fengjia Night Market in central Taiwan for a rough calculation, the billed price per cutlet could be as low as about 50 yuan, so 15 million servings of chicken cutlets would require only NT$750,000,000 (750 million).

There’s also another option: at the over 5,655 7-11 (7-Eleven) convenience stores nationwide, one of their products, “Fragrant Chicken Cutlet”, is one of my most frequently eaten late-night snacks lately. After microwaving, aside from lacking a bit of the crispness of fresh frying, the meat has a chewy texture and flowing juices—a product with a fairly high cost-performance ratio, and guaranteed safer and more hygienic than chicken cutlet stalls of unknown origin and those black, grimy oil pots! A pack of Fragrant Chicken Cutlet costs only 48 yuan, close to the 50 yuan I set earlier; distributing cutlets through this channel would also be a very good choice.

Well, I hereby declare that I give up one serving, so Chen Po-wei can save fifty yuan (unless he chooses the 7-11 option).