I’m not normally a chicken wing eater, but I hear about others liking them. Thought I’d get some at the store the other day, but they were $3.99 a pound while drumsticks were only $1.99 a pound.
For you chicken wing enthusiasts - why would chicken wings be worth the $2 more a pound? What are you doing with them? Talk me out of the drumsticks I bought instead.
They were a garbage cut of meat that were tossed to the freed slaves of the south, and as black folk do, they turned it into a delicious snack with spices and seasonings. As culture desegregated, it became a trendy dish and that drove the prices up on what was once a trash cut.
From a culinary viewpoint, the ratio of protein, fat and crispy skin is perfect and you won’t find it elsewhere on a chicken. The large surface area to relatively small amount of edible meat means a high ratio of seasoning per bite.
Makes for a tasty snack
I’ve never had them, but my guess is that they’re essentially a sauce-delivery system?
I would love to tell you you’re wrong, but you kinda nailed it.
Also, what the fuck? How have you never had wings?
In the two weeks before the superbowl the local news will start talking about ancillary things like what people eat in the cities who’s teams made the superbowl that you can serve at a superbowl party. In the early ‘90s Buffalo made the superbowl 4 years in a row, and thus the Buffalo wing gained national notoriety.
And it ruined chicken wings prices forever.
They’re not. They used to be the cheapest cut of chicken because most places would just toss them out. As buffalo wings became more popular people have been consuming them more driving up the price. They taste good, but they’re definitely not priced well at 3.99 a pound. I would expect them to be on par with the cost of chicken breasts.
Have you even seen chicken breast prices lately? I’d expect wings to be around the same price as the drumsticks.
Legitimately asking because I never buy breasts, are they wicked expensive right now? Breasts are the worst part of the chicken for anything other than the total amount of meat IMHO because they don’t have as much flavor and dry out really easily when they’re only slightly overcooked. My order of preference is thighs>legs>wings>breasts.
I would rate wings over legs since the latter have less flavor and more sinew but otherwise agree with you totally.
Honestly thighs, legs, and wings for me are on pretty even footing depending on what I’m doing for a meal. At places that do whole chickens and not wings specifically, I generally prefer the order I listed. But wings from places that specialize in wings are really great. Whole breasts are just undeniably over by themselves as my least favorite way to eat chicken (even though I don’t dislike them or anything, I just don’t prefer them).
I suppose it has to do with surface area. You could toss your drumsticks in buffalo sauce, but there’s a couple problems. It would be way messier and you’d end up with even more sauce on your face, and ultimately there’s more meat to surface in a drumstick so you’d end up with less sauce in each bite, including plenty of chicken closer to the bone with no sauce at all.
So-
- Convenience
- Maximum sauce
Max skin / crunch to sauce as well
Drumsticks are superior
Hell, only the neck is not superior.
Hell nah!
They used to be thrown away or used for stock, poor people turned them into trendy food and now it’s expensive. Same with Osso bucco.
Damned poor people and their master plan of trend setting. shakes fist
Really though, poor people buy what they can afford and do what they can to make it delicious. Think the same thing happened with bacon and lobster.
I don’t think they planned on making it trendy, but cheap tasty food sure has a way of getting popular.
I recall reading that lobster used to only be deemed fit enough food for prisoners.
And lamb shanks! Used to be so cheap. Not any more.
I had my first taste at a dive bar in 1989. 5 cents apiece!
And lobster! Used to be prison food.
They are good bar food, used to be cheap leftover chicken parts, lots of crispy skin and sauce, easy to cook with a deep fryer, slower to eat, and goes well with beer.
Surface area to volume ratio, they deliver sauce better and have high crispy skin.
Very tender meat you get to eat off the bone, plus lots of crispy skin.
disclaimer: I don’t like wings either
I would buy the drumsticks too at that price. If you’re not looking for the historical reasons, then it’s purely preference and recipe. Drumsticks are higher in meat and chicken wings are higher in skin and sauce surface area. I usually prefer drumsticks but wings win when the recipe makes the skin super crunchy or I want a higher ratio of sauce.
Skin to meat ratio. Drum sticks fill you up faster, I eat wings for the spices and sauces not the meat. You can eat 12 delicious wings for every 6 delicious drumsticks. If you just want to get full faster go for drumsticks. If you want to savour the action of eating, go for wings.
And if you are dirt poor … you use the wing as a dipping stick to lap up as much of the sauce as possible by double/triple/quadruple dipping before consuming the chicken wing meat.
More seasoning to meat ratio. And the meat is tender like breast meat, but fatty enough to not be dry. Easy to eat with your hands and to share. Easy to cook fast and thoroughly in a deep fryer. And used to be dirt cheap. I remember 10 cent wing nights at bars to bring in people and make them thirsty. Basically selling them at cost. Would be more like 50 cents now. But they got popular, so you never see it anymore. Now they sell for a huge profit.
I‘d go for the drjmsticks in that case. Wings are great but legs are equally good and if they are cheaper, sign me up!
Also those prices are insane… I pay 6.- over here for 500g of wings from the supermarket…
Wings used to be very cheap. They are still quite fatty so they tend to be richer flavored as well
