Once upon a time, in a land not so far, far away – in the 1960s, in Eastern Ohio, about an hour from Pittsburgh – city chicken was a supper staple.

Mom would take cubes of stewing beef and pork (fairly cheap cuts and/or scraps), alternate them on short wooden skewers, drench them in egg and bread them with Kellogg’s Corn Flakes crumbs.

Lore has it that the skewered meat dish was designed more than a century ago to mimic chicken legs which, for many during depressed times, weren’t very affordable.

Mom was a child of the Great Depression. Her family constantly kept a pot of stew going on the stove; whatever edible things they came upon on any given day were dropped into the mix.

That experience was the genesis for learning how, as an adult, to stretch a grocery store dollar. Think elbow macaroni in milk. City chicken was another of her many budget-stretching manifestations.

Freshly breaded then lightly seasoned, into a searing-hot iron skillet with crackling Crisco the city chicken went for a good browning. Next came a 40-minute oven bake at 375 degrees, turned once.

The aroma? Incredible. The results? Smothered in chicken gravy with plenty of mashed potatoes and wax beans on the side — melting-in-your-mouth dee-VINE. It might as well have been lobster for the four-brother brood. Not that we knew what lobster tasted like, mind you.

How sweet it was for all those memories – the tastes, the smells, the details –  to sweep over a certain cook this week as he made city chicken for the first time in a long time.

Consider the recipe quasi-faithful to Mom’s, given a changing product and cooking methods.

Today’s city chicken tends to be all pork and of choicer cuts. Marinating the skewered meat all day in a bowl of nicely seasoned beaten eggs leads to plumper and tastier “legs.” And butter, butter, butter has replaced the Crisco, as has a slightly hotter oven.

But the result was the same, if not better.

The meat didn’t quite fall of the skewers but neither was there any resistance. The gravy was the perfect complement to the meat and the cream-and-butter whipped potatoes. The wax beans, delicate in their taste, offered the perfect counter texture.

Fifty years ago, the standard city chicken leg allotment was one per person at the McNickle supper table known as “the nook.” One! Thus, cube by cube of beef and pork were savored, and with great reverence.

Four legs of city chicken were savored this past week. And, cube by cube, so were revered the memories that each one conjured.

Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).