A note from Jeff: My father has had some very unique experiences. This is well before my own time; but I can sympathize.
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I recently saw an article in the Wall Street Journal about how a restaurant chain known
as Wingstop handles the large volume of online orders during events such as the Super
Bowl. While the chain has a few fried chicken items, and some side dishes, on its menu,
most of its sales are of chicken wings, in an endless assortment of flavors.
The article brought back memories of chicken meals at the family table while I was
growing up; but not the memories you would expect.
My family ate a lot of chicken, and it was unusual to have any other main course on
Friday nights. And, one way or another, we ate every part of the chicken. The giblets
were used to make chicken soup. All of the rest of the chicken was roasted or prepared in the oven in some other ways. There was one big exception: wings.
No one liked the wings, and no one ate them. Most of the time, my mother cut them off before she put
the bird in the oven. They went into the soup with the neck, the gizzard, and the other
giblets. If she somehow forgot to cut off the wings before cooking the chicken, she
would make a pretense of eating them; but they would actually end up in the garbage.
Sadly, Mom died long before chicken wings became one of the moist popular American
snack foods ever. She would have regarded the popularity of chicken wings as one of
the funniest things ever.
No, I won’t be ordering from Wingstop!
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A guest post by Joseph D. Mach
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