About 30 years ago, Robin Horel was a salesman for Canada Packers in Saskatoon.
“Wings were the cheapest item on my price list,” he said.
Today, he’s the president of the Canadian Poultry and Egg Processors Council and said chicken wings are now more expensive when compared to the rest of the bird.
“They cost more than legs and sometimes they cost more than breasts,” he said from Ottawa.
Horel describes the evolution of the chicken wing from essentially a waste part to popular menu item as a phenomenon.
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With little meat on the bones, wings were usually relegated to the stock pot or certainly to the smallest person at the dinner table.
No one seems to know exactly how they became so popular but the demand, especially from restaurants and bars, is high. Horel said Canada has to import wings to satisfy it.
“We import wings every year and we use all that we produce,” he said.
There are a few legends surrounding the ‘invention’ of the chicken wing but one belief is widely held.
On a Friday night in 1964, at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, N.Y., owner Teressa Bellissimo served two plates of deep-fried (or broiled, the legend is not clear) chicken wings to her son and some of his friends.
The wings were flavoured with a secret hot sauce, and served along with celery stalks and blue cheese dressing.
The buffalo wing was born and became an instant hit. Other restaurants quickly imitated the idea, introducing different levels of heat in the sauce.
However, the Anchor Bar is still considered the home of the wing and is a popular tourist destination in Buffalo.
Wings today come in several flavours, breaded or not, pre-cooked or raw, frozen and fresh.
They can be found in grocery stores, along with the original bars and restaurants. And they’ve become main courses for many consumers, not just a snack or appetizer.
Diane Pastoor, a chicken producer from Dalmeny, Sask., who sits on the board of Chicken Farmers of Saskatchewan, said she thinks of wings as hockey food. She said consumption dropped during the year the National Hockey League players were locked out.
“That’s the Canadian answer,” she said with a laugh.
Horel said events like the Super Bowl and the holiday season push consumption higher.
He said increasing domestic chicken production wouldn’t help satisfy demand because Canada would end up with too many legs.
The next challenge for the industry is to do for drumsticks what Bellissimo did for wings.
Question: Why can’t chickens fly?
Answer: Gallus gallus, Earth’s most common bird (25 billion and growing) can and often does fly through the air but with hardly the greatest of ease.
Chickens are omnivores by nature. In the wild, they eat seeds, plants, grubs and even insects and mice.
Domesticated chickens typically eat protein-rich feed and grains, leading to weight gains not normally seen in wild chickens. In addition, chickens have been selectively bred through the years to create large-breasted birds. The extra weight makes flight nearly impossible.
Leaner domestic chickens can fly for short distances, usually over fences or other obstacles.
Free-range chickens often have the tips of the longest feathers on one of the wings cut, preventing the bird from flying much father than a few feet at a time.
Wild chickens without clipped wings can fly much greater and higher distances.
An interesting fact: Chickens were used by prophets in Ancient Rome to predict important future events. In Ancient Rome, chickens were kept in cages and fed cake. A Roman citizen in need of a prediction would call upon a caretaker, who would open the cage and offer the chicken a piece of cake. If the chicken stayed in the cage and ate, the omen was thought to be good. If the chicken ignored the cake and flew away, the omen was bad.
Source: Dr. George Catalano, Professor of mechanical engineering, Binghamton University, New York.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Celebrities answer the perennial question
Colonel Sanders: I missed one?
Howard Cosell: It may very well have been one of the most astonishing events to grace the annals of history. A historic, unprecedented avian biped with the temerity to attempt such a Herculean achievement formerly relegated to homo- sapien pedestrians is truly a remarkable occurrence.
Mae West: I invited it to come up and see me sometime.
Martin Luther King: It had a dream.
Neil Armstrong: One small step for chicken, one giant leap for poultry.
The Sphinx: You tell me.
Sir Isaac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest. Chickens in motion tend to cross the road.
Nietzsche: Because if you gaze too long across the Road, the Road gazes also across at you.
Darth Vader: Because it could not resist the power of the Dark Side.
Fox Mulder: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross the road before you believe it?
Jerry Seinfeld: Why does anyone cross a road? I mean, why doesn’t anyone ever think to ask, ‘What the heck was this chicken doing walking all over the place anyway?’
Dr. Seuss: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes! The chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I’ve not been told!
Ernest Hemingway: To die. In the rain.
Mark Twain: The news of its crossing has been greatly exaggerated.
Oliver Stone: The question is not, ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ but rather, ‘Who was crossing the road at the same time, whom we overlooked in our haste to observe the chicken crossing?’
Robert Frost: To reach the sidewalk less travelled by.
George Orwell: Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests.
Source: Website research
