I know there is a lot going on in the world right now but this has me worked up into a lather.
There is a virtual who's who of restaurant chains now advertising and serving what they refer to as boneless wings. I found this confusing and couldn't put my finger on what it was that had me bothered by this turn of events and then suddenly the lightbulb went off and I shouted at the TV....
....those are chicken nuggets not boneless wings.
Nuggets are little bite sized morsels of sometimes white meat chicken sometimes mystery parts of chicken but bite sized nonetheless. They were designed for little kids so that parents taking three minutes to choke down their Big Mac were able to keep the future diabetic brats quiet while they ate. They were cheap and easy to eat and if you dunked them in enough sauce they almost tasted like real food.
Meanwhile Hooters was trying to make you forget they existed only for the shameless exploitation of young women with, ahem, healthy chests by creating these little bone in chicken wings that if you thought about it resembled more pigeon wings than chicken wings but let's not go there. Suddenly every other sports bar or casual dining restaurant that didn't have "healthy" young girls dressed in very short shorts copying the wings bandwagon themselves. Wings were the rage.
They charged a stupid amount for them, sans the occasional one night special at Papa Boo's on Buckeye Lake where you could get them for $0.10 each, and people were suddenly causing food prep companies to grow pigmy chickens to keep up with the demand. (Again, I'm assured that they are not pigeon wings even as the pigeon population has seemed to have shrunk considerably)
Then, one night some manager got the brainstorm of saying, "why mess with the bones?" and he changed the menu from chicken nuggets to boneless wings and a new way to rip off America was created. They could still charge a stupid amount of money and people were loving them. My favorite is the restaurant that offers 6 boneless wings for $3.99 and 6 nuggets for $1.99 and people are actually buying the boneless version in crazy numbers.
I've actually seen both come to a table and you cannot tell the difference because there is no difference and the people scarfing them down are oblivious to being ripped off while the staff and manager are pointing to them, laughing, and high fiveing each other.
And now the one place where you could count on only finding tender delicious beef, Arby's, has entered the arena with their own version of boneless wings. When will this madness stop?
Comments