the naming of chicken parts
Mar. 21st, 2025 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
calimacSome people profess to be puzzled as to why other people eat chicken wings. "They're just little bags of bones," I've heard it said. Yes! I reply. That is why I like them! Wings have a higher-ratio of skin to meat than other chicken pieces, and it's the skin - and the seasoning and coating on it - that make chicken more than just good.
Whole chicken wings are less commonly served these days than before. What's become trendy in the last few decades is single joints of wings. The wing is cut into three pieces, the tips are discarded (season and cook them, and I'd eat them), and the rest makes two pieces.
One of those pieces, the one directly connected to the breast before it's cut off, is called the drumette, due to its resemblance to a miniature of the leg piece known as the drumstick from its resemblance to a etc. But what is the other piece called? For a long time I didn't know, which was frustrating because it was my preferred piece. But then I began to accumulate names:
Flats are what I found them called at the original Buffalo wing bar in Buffalo, and which I subsequently confirmed is a generally recognized term among others who serve wing pieces as snacks. Wingstop, for instance, uses the term.
Mid-joints is how they're labeled when you buy them uncooked at an Asian grocery. Many Chinese restaurants that serve chicken wing pieces only use the mid-joints.
Wingettes is how they're referred to on bags of cooked and frozen wing pieces in supermarkets. Isn't that a more general term for all the pieces? No, because the bag reads "wingettes and drumettes."
By any of those names ...
Whole chicken wings are less commonly served these days than before. What's become trendy in the last few decades is single joints of wings. The wing is cut into three pieces, the tips are discarded (season and cook them, and I'd eat them), and the rest makes two pieces.
One of those pieces, the one directly connected to the breast before it's cut off, is called the drumette, due to its resemblance to a miniature of the leg piece known as the drumstick from its resemblance to a etc. But what is the other piece called? For a long time I didn't know, which was frustrating because it was my preferred piece. But then I began to accumulate names:
Flats are what I found them called at the original Buffalo wing bar in Buffalo, and which I subsequently confirmed is a generally recognized term among others who serve wing pieces as snacks. Wingstop, for instance, uses the term.
Mid-joints is how they're labeled when you buy them uncooked at an Asian grocery. Many Chinese restaurants that serve chicken wing pieces only use the mid-joints.
Wingettes is how they're referred to on bags of cooked and frozen wing pieces in supermarkets. Isn't that a more general term for all the pieces? No, because the bag reads "wingettes and drumettes."
By any of those names ...
Well!
Date: 2025-03-22 04:39 pm (UTC)Re: Well!
Date: 2025-03-22 07:22 pm (UTC)Re: Well!
Date: 2025-03-22 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-23 12:28 am (UTC)I say "sad" because I realize that there is more actual flavor in dark meat, and because the dark meat parts do, indeed, have the desirable higher-skin-to-meat ratio. But the relative lack of flavor in the breast is actually (to me) a huge advantage when cooking, in that it gives a blank canvas on which you can paint just about any flavor palette you like.
(Except rootbeer. Do not try making rootbeer chicken breast. I speak from sad experience. In my very limited defense, it seemed like a good idea at the time.)
So I have never set foot in a Buffalo Wings store, and never shall. To me, chicken nirvana is a Kentucky Fried extra-crispy breast.
Your mileage, obviously varies, as it should.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-23 07:50 am (UTC)I do like breast meat, even boneless and skinless, if it's not overcooked. Unfortunately it almost always is.
no subject
Date: 2025-03-23 06:12 pm (UTC)I agree that breast meat overcooked is less good -- dries out. And undercooked is just as bad. You have to time this stuff carefully... and it varies depending on the thickness of the breast...