Food and Speechmaking
The term "rubber chicken" is used disparagingly to describe the food served at political or corporate events, weddings, and other gatherings where there are a large number of guests who require serving in a short timeframe. Chicken, pre-cooked, is held at serving temperature for some time and then dressed with a sauce as it is served. Consequently the chicken meat is tough or “rubbery.”
Someone who "travels the rubber chicken circuit" is said to do so by attending or making speeches at many such gatherings, often as part of political campaigning.
Read more about this topic: Rubber Chicken
Famous quotes containing the words food and/or speechmaking:
“It is the mark of a mean, vulgar and ignoble spirit to dwell on the thought of food before meal times or worse to dwell on it afterwards, to discuss it and wallow in the remembered pleasures of every mouthful. Those whose minds dwell before dinner on the spit, and after on the dishes, are fit only to be scullions.”
—Francis De Sales, Saint (1567–1622)
“I’m not in the speechmaking business nowadays. I’m following the advice of an old mountain woman who said: ‘When I walks, I walk slowly. When I sits, I sits loosely. And when I feel a worry coming on, I just go to sleep.’”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)