word of the day: pope’s nose

context:

Miss Amelia … attended to a few details in the kitchen and entered the cafe with the pope’s nose of a hen between her fingers, as that was her favorite piece.

definition for pope’s nose:

the part of a bird that corresponds to the tail of a mammal and forms a broad flattened lobe bearing the tail feathers and usually a dorsal uropygial gland

per Merriam-Webster

I’ve never heard the tail of a chicken being called a “pope’s nose.” When I came across this passage I went, “The what?” I wasn’t even sure what the elements were — was it “the pope’s nose,” or the “pope’s nose of a hen”? Apparently it’s also known as the parson’s nose and the sultan’s nose. 

My husband Kent is familiar with the term. I didn’t ask if it was coveted at his family's table, as it supposedly is in Britain. 

source: The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and other stories

by Carson McCullers

1951/1969. Bantam Books, New York