Chicken Nugget: An Emblem of Freedom

Even though I don’t eat much meat anymore thanks to my quasi-veg diet, nothing stirs the passions of my stomach quite like those brown, finely breaded morsels of undetermined poultry origin.

You hook us young, oh nugget. From those early years when mom and dad would head out to a night on the town, leaving the babysitter to whip up some chicken nuggets with Kraft macaroni and cheese, we learnt the appeal of your oven-baked ways. (Or occasionally deep-fried!) You called to us from the Golden Arches, that two-letter prefix somehow conveying a sense of a more refined, enlightened chicken nugget, particularly when engulfed in your transformative chamber of high-fructose-corn-syrup-laden barbecue sauce. (Or occasionally sweet and sour!)

But aging in the world of chicken nuggets was no case of putting away childish things. On the contrary, you held total sway over the Woody High cafeteria, when nugget day was the best of the school lunch rotation, even lording it over the nachos. Wikipedia tells the unknowing hearts that your secret goodness is primarily chicken skin and reconstituted meat slurry, but to us, you’ve always been love in breaded form. Sure, your cousin the chicken strip has taken dominance of the handheld boneless chicken market, but we all know that’s just a veneer of clever, “wholesome food” marketing that only plays off of your undying appeal.

Whether sodden with hot sauce (my personal favorite), sticky with honey or zinged with ketchup, you, chicken nugget, remain the king of the cafeteria. I salute you, product of 1950s food innovation, when it was only our faith in God and reconstituted meat slurry that kept the free world afloat in a world of atheist, borscht-swilling communists. You are an emblem of freedom and the unvarnished appeal of stuff that simply tastes awesome.

Well played, sir, well played.