rubber chicken

English

Etymology

The name derives from the fact that the quality of the food often served at such events is secondary to the purpose of the events and seldom good.

Pronunciation

• rubber + chicken

Noun

rubber chicken (countable and uncountable, plural rubber chickens)

1. (literal) A hollow, bright yellow toy or prop depicting a plucked chicken that emits a squeak when squeezed.

   The hack comic produced a rubber chicken, to the groans and boos of the audience.

   • 1888 March 17, Bill Nye, “Bill Nye and the Blizzard”, in The World, page 5:

     Men who have squeaked the rubber chicken on Broadway, or wooed humanity with a fringe of swaying, porpoise-hide shoe-laces, were swallowed up in the gray shadows of the storm.

   • 1988, Mark Stolzenberg, How to Be Really Funny, page 63:

     The rubber chicken is probably the best example of a prop used for schtick.

2. (colloquial, uncountable, usually attributive) The mediocre food served at social events, especially political fundraisers.
   • 1883 November 9, “Odds and Ends”, in Gloucester Citizen, page 4:

     The bill of fare consisted of an india-rubber chicken and boiled eggs.

   • 1997, Jim Klobuchar, Minstrel: My Adventure in Newspapering, page 88:

     It was the hoedowns and the caucuses and the rubber chicken dinners and the big DFL blowouts at the Minneapolis Auditorium.

   • 2009, J. A. Jance, Kiss of the Bees, page 33:

     She had felt the same way about attending political gatherings—the rubber-chicken luncheons and living room campaign coffee hours— back when Brandon had been a candidate for public office.

   • 2009, Rick Mercer, Rick Mercer Report: The Paperback Book, page 291:

     This is an annual shindig where politicians and members of the media sit down together, have a few beers and eat some rubber chicken, and political leaders of the day make a few silly speeches at their own expense.

   • 2020, John Bercow, Unspeakable: The Sunday Times Bestselling Autobiography:

     What the hell have you devoted all these years to politics for if all you want to do is to work the rubber chicken circuit and hang out with elderly activists!'

   • 2021, Elizabeth Farrelly, Killing Sydney: The Fight for a City's Soul:

     I found both the rubber chicken and the political offering equally unappetising.

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rubber,‎ chicken.

Further reading

• “rubber chicken”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.