Thursday, June 17, 2004

Tastes like chicken... nuggets

Chicken nuggets. Commonly called 'Chicken McNuggets' EVERYWHERE by people who are too stupid to realize they're not in a McDonalds. Also called 'chicken tenders' by people who are believe they're too proper to eat a 'nugget.'


Yes fast food elitism exists. People that say 'hamburger' instead of 'burger' or 'hamburger with cheese' instead of 'cheese burger' or 'pomme frites' instead of 'french fries.' This practice was notably WIDESPREAD a few months back when 'french fries' became 'freedom fries' and 'pomme frites' became 'freedom frites.'

However, we are not here to talk about fast food elitism. We are here to talk about 'chicken nuggets.' (FYI chicken nuggets were also briefly called 'freedom nuggets' because many thought French behavior to be 'chicken.' This practice was quickly stopped because it sounded so friggin stupid.)


Chicken nuggets were invented Arthur Blaise Nugget in 1854. Nugget was a chemist who ran a small eatery out of his living room in Langhorne, Pennsylvania. The name of the eatery was "Ye Old Food Place" and business was booming. One day a customer rode into his house on a camel (camels were widely used for transportation in the 1800's before the invention of the horse.)
The man on the camel demanded to be served 'something deep fried that I can dippeth into barbecue sauce.'
Nugget went to work in his lab. He tried every piece of meat in his kitchen, and none were tasty enough. Finally he tried a piece of a cantaloupe.
Nugget brought the fried cantaloupe out to the stranger who dipped it into the barbecue sauce and exclaimed 'this is the greatest food, ever!"
Nugget's nuggets became such a hit that celebrities would order them by the dozen. Everyone from Abe Lincoln to Mark Twain had to have this 'miracle nugget.'
The newspapers exclaimed in a famous headline "Dewey Eats Nugget."
In 1984 one week before his 130th birthday, nugget was murdered and his recipe stolen. Within days, nuggets were being sold in every fast food restaurant in the world. Only now, with a new ingredient: CHICKEN!

Let's compare the chicken nuggets at some of the fast food chains:

McDonalds:
McDonalds makes a nugget that doesn't taste like chicken. Odd, since most everything you eat can be classified as 'tastes like chicken', McDonald's nuggets don't. They also have the toughest batter coating of all the chains. You could peel that skin off and it would still keep it's shape. For some reason they are really stingy with the nugget sauce. The early nugget commercials had Ronald McDonald telling you to try to come up with sauce combinations by dipping them in multiple sauces. Now you are lucky if they give you one sweet and sour.
Also, they used to consider 'honey' one of the sauce dipping choices. Lately honey has been harder to come by.
Rating: A+

Carl's Jr.:
They used to serve chicken nuggets shaped like their 'Star' mascot. Sadly, that practice has stopped. They still make a pretty good crunchy nugget.
Rating A+

Kentucky Fried Chicken:
They don't have nuggets, rather they have 'crispy strips.' Boy are they crispy! Big, too.
Rating: A+

Wendy's:
They used to have a commercial where they had Kool & The Gang's Celebration playing with the words 'crispy chicken nuggets' added randomly throughout the song. I still think of it whenever I hear that song.
They also buck with tradition by selling their nuggets in orders of five rather than the usual six. For this sin they will most likely be eternally damned.
Rating: A+

Burger King:
Burger King's 'chicken tenders' are neither 'tender' or 'chicken', oh wait they probably are chicken.
Why do you park in a drive way and drive on a park way. I wish I had a dollar for everyone that said that to me. I would take the dollars and buy a hammer to hit them with.
Rating: A+

Taco Bell:
No chicken nuggets here.
Rating: A+

Nathan's:
Serves HOT DOG NUGGETS! Not really a chicken nugget, but most hot dogs have some chicken in them.
Rating: A+

What is your favorite chicken nugget?

4 comments:

  1. I have to give a shout out to Arby's. Much like KFC, Arby's eschews the nugget in favor of the strips, but thy're still pretty damn tasty.

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  2. Taco Bell, since you also gave it an A+ is the obvious choice.

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  3. Sweetie gave everything an A+ and I can't blame him. It is pretty hard to screw up nuggets. I actually prefer the 5 piece at Wendy's though; I can buy two 5 pieces and not feel bad about myself like I do when I order two six pieces at McDonalds, or a 9 and a 6, or two sixes and a 9...
    BTW, when I worked at McDonald's, we had a training video that showed you how to prep all of the food. The McNugget one was the funniest though, because puppet versions of McNuggets hosted the video, and were basically showing you how to kill their own kind!

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  4. Anonymous6/22/2004

    It's midnight at the Oasis and there's a pile up out on the four-foot... Yes... some dumb cammel stopped to hump a speed bump and got rear ended.

    Just the idea of Camels in Ben Salaam captures my imagination. I don't know why. Maybe it's because I wonder what the PA Turnpike authority would have collected in camel tolls on a good night. Maybe it's because I'm trying to imagine the parking lot at Franklin Mills filled with Camels. But no matter how you slice it, the camel hump is made of nothing but chicken nuggets!

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