Who invented chicken nuggets? 

There’s hardly anyone who doesn’t know that having canned or packaged food and drink items are often detrimental to health. But that doesn’t stop us from relishing them, right? Nobody can deny that a bowl of yummy chicken nuggets accompanied by our favourite dip can be an instant mood lifter. Isn’t it? But chicken nuggets do not always come frozen in packets. In fact, you can make your own nuggets by putting small, boneless pieces of chicken in a batter (should comprise of bread) of your own choice and then deep-fry or bake it. In fact, most fast-food joints make them in the same way! Okay, but when and how did nuggets come into the food scene? Let us delve into that story. 

Born in the hands of a professor 
Yes, you read that right! Chicken nugget originated in the 1950s in the hands of a food science professor named Robert C. Baker who was based at the Cornell University, USA. In fact, believe it or not, coming up with the idea of nuggets was Baker’s unpatented thesis work. Woah, really? Yes! Turns out that Baker wanted to address two problems that the contemporary American meat industry was facing: Clumping ground meat without skin and creating a perfect batter coating that would help in instant deep frying as well as keeping meat frozen. And guess what? Baker did solve the problem he started out with. His bite-ready “chicken crispie” (original name of nugget) could be formed in any shape by first putting the meat in vinegar, salt, grains and using milk powder to make it all stay together. This was followed by using an egg and another grain-based batter for frying or freezing or both.  

World War II red meat crisis at USA 
Food historians also trace nuggets back to the Second World War when chicken became the primary source of animal protein for Americans in absence of red meat that was shipped abroad for the US army, creating shortage at home. Long story short, this made chicken come into limelight and its rising demand made the food industry find incentivised ways of producing tasty chicken dishes. But here arose another problem. Once the US military heard about chicken, they came for it too, thus shipping chicken grown in the USA outside too. But guess what? They often left behind the fat attached to the bones and common Americans had to make-do with that. Experts believe that this was the driving force behind food scientists in the USA to come up with chicken items that would satiate one and all. Robert C. Baker took this opportunity to pioneer chicken nuggets.  

Nugget fun facts 
If you are someone who is good with the English language, you would know that nugget refers to a small yet compact clump of something, such as a gold nugget. But in that regard, chicken nugget is a misnomer. Although it is small, it is definitely not compact and mostly contains chicken fat.  

Here's another nugget fact that will blow your mind. A man named Thomas Welborn holds a Guinness World Record for eating maximum number of chicken nuggets under three minutes and the number is 42! Do you think you can beat him? 

Now served hot and crispy all over the world, nugget is usually light-weight and tiny. However, there was once a chicken nugget that weighed 23.2 kilograms and was 3.25 feet long and 2 feet wide. Recorded as the largest chicken nugget till date, it was made by popular American food chain Empire Kosher and unveiled at Kosherfest, an annual food festival held at New Jersey in 2013.  

Another milestone was when a nugget fan named Carter Wilkerson tweeted to Wendy’s asking the food joint what would take them to offer him a year of free nuggets. It was the most retweeted tweet of 2017 with 3.5 million shares.