Interesting article in today’s NYT Food section about the origin of the chicken tender.
Gift link below… hope you enjoy it. And don’t forget the dipping sauce!
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Man I love chicken tenders. And who knew Manchester NH? I have even been there – but not eaten any chicken tenders in their birthplace, to the best of my recollection 
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That’s an interesting article. We don’t generally see “tenders” in the UK, so I wasnt really sure what they are or why there’s a bit of chicken breast that’s prepared differently in the US, but remains part of the breast in the UK. Now I know.
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In Germany it is referred to as ‘chicken breast filet’ — perhaps bc pork and beef tenderloin have a similar shape?
I love making them myself in lieu of schnitzel bc that’s just too much of a PITA: seasoned flour (spicy, usually, i.e. hot Hungarian paprika, cayenne, etc.), seasoned egg warsh (MOAR heat, panko. Off in a hot pan of oil & ghee mix they go.
Damn. Now I want tenders…
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It’s only the inside part – the bit you can peel out from next to the breast bone as a separate piece.
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WHAT a surprise!
“…until 1999, when the U.S. Department of Agriculture noticed enough volume to start tracking their price, and then only in the Northeast. It was, at that time, one of the cheapest pieces of the bird by weight, which made it appealing to restaurants. “Because it was an unused portion of the chicken, it was a value at the time,” Mr. Whitman said. Today it is the most expensive cut.”
I rarely buy them in the stupidmarket, because they are just that - too expensive. But fascinating story - and from just up the road!
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You gotta pull out that long tendon.
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Ain’t that the truth (although I usually leave it in bc I don’t wanna deal. I coulda sworn I posted about that issue but can’t seem to find it ATM.
A few tricks and hacks were posted in response…
the article decided that chicken tenders are the muscle along the backbone . . .
uhmm, having cut up many a whole chicken . . this is patently false.
true for a beef/pork ‘tenderloin’ - but the chicken “tenderloin” is under and totally covered by ‘the breast meat.’
and . . . my MIL was cooking them in the '60s - so the “invented 50 years ago” is also out of reality.
I used to buy them exclusively in Japan because they were the cheapest cut of chicken there (between $1.50〜$2.00 a lb). Japan is a country who puts a higher value on dark meat…they view white meat as too dry. OTOH, I found that thigh meat in Japan to be too sinewy and preferred the white meat.
BTW, generally, if one wants bone-in chicken (except for wings) in Japan, they have to be special ordered from a butcher. Twice I bought a whole chicken for parties (I made roast chicken stuffed with rice & chestnut stuffing) and had to search for a butcher who could even do so for me.
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It’s chicken “filet mignon” in our household.
I don’t think I understand; you bought a boneless whole chicken?
No, in my vocabulary, “bone-in” means with the bones still attached. Per the OED, “boned” or “deboned” mean the same as “boneless”. And IMHO, that is confusing!
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Hmm…yeah, I’ve never pondered the question because I’m not a big fan (nor of chicken fingers and fried strips of chicken in anyway). I wouldn’t even consider this something different from just fried chicken. I mean we don’t talk about how fried chicken drumsticks are a thing, separate from fried chicken pieces, or fried chicken wings.
So someone gets credit for frying a piece of meat separately? Low bar these days! (Sorry, Manchester, NH HO peeps!)
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Although not really. Your vocabulary definitions are quite clear to me.
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Wings… Buffalo wings are definitely talked about separately from other parts of the chicken. There are even restaurants dedicated to wings!
and boneless Buffalo wings are not actually wings…
Thank you. But to clarify, the portion I quoted above is what I was referring to as confusing.
It’s not you, it’s me 
, but I remain curious.
Which piece of chicken on the bone do you like best?
Did you stuff a whole chicken with the bone in, or did you stuff a whole chicken with the bone out?
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