Sunday Re-Run: Chickens

Sunday Re-Run: Chickens

I wrote this a couple years ago. I ate chicken tenders, yesterday, from Mexi-Wing, albeit a different branch. Using the logic within, I'd reckong the number of chickens I've eaten pieces of has now surpassed 7,500 easily....

If you're ever in my neck of the woods, try the Lemon Pepper chicken wings from Mexi-Wing. They've been a favorite snack of mine since I wandered back to this end of the state. They do an exceptionally good job on that fowl.

I've often wondered just how many wings I could eat in a sitting. Go in with an empty stomach and a mind for culinary mayhem. You know, just see how many wings I could put down before I passed out or little men in hairnets dragged me from the eatery.

It also gets me to wondering: How many chickens have I eaten portions of? In my life. You know, I rarely pull a Joliet Jake, and order four fried chickens. In a sitting, I'll generally just eat a piece or two of the chicken. In fact, I'm hardpressed to think of a time that I've actually sat to eat a whole chicken.

Usually, I'll eat the breast. Fried, or grilled. That's what I'll go for.

Which is not to say I don't eat drumsticks. The drumsticks are my dad's favorite part of the chicken. And I grew up getting punched in the throat anytime I went after a chicken leg, so I have something of a mental block around the leg--nay, any of the dark meat of the chicken.

I will say I've eaten my share of wings. Probably your share, too. Hot. Barbecued. The aforementioned Lemon Pepper.

But back to the question at hand: How many chickens have I eaten portions of? Today, I ate a chicken breast (as the entree), and a grand total of 8 chicken wings. The law of averages says that I ate the wings off four chickens. Now, that's a thought that pleases me to no end, to know that I'm responsible for putting to such tasty use an appendage on a chicken that works about as much as the exercise bike sitting in my parents' basement.

But we also have no clue as to whether each pair of wings actually belonged to an individual chicken. In point of fact, it is all the more likely that I could have eaten 1 wing from 8 different chickens, along with the breast of potentially a ninth chicken.

It's a day's work, I reckon. Becoming a scourge to the chicken populace of the world. If chickens had more than a peanut-sized brain, and the ability to form even a makeshift religious structure, I tend to think I'd end up on the devil's side of things. At the very least, I like to think of myself as The Chicken Boogeyman. A monster who comes out of the night to eat pieces of chickens, leaving others to my throat-punching father.

I should note that I've probably never eaten a Whole chicken. I can't think that I've ever chowed down on the head of a chicken, as I'm a whole different breed of geek. And I can't point but to seventeen or eighteen times that I've actually eaten the feet.

Never eaten the feathers, or the beak, now that I think about it.

However, I've eaten McNuggets, so I don't think I can rightfully claim to have never eaten a chicken's butthole.

Anyway. To answer a question posed previously: to put an estimate on how many chickens I've eaten part of...

We'll give a conservative average of 5 chickens a week, pieces eaten....
52 weeks a year....
27 years (give or take) of eating solid food...

My calculator says: 7,020. Damn. I should have had a party four weeks ago. I do love round numbers.

But it's a conservative estimate. I've been known to down a dozen wings without batting an eye...that's anywhere from 6 to 12 chickens right there.

My number of chickens eaten could range well up into the 5 digits.

If only I'd been keeping track of these things.

Anyway...back to the original point. Those folks at Mexi-Wing do a fine job on wings. They should. Wing is part of the name.

And when I eat the Lemon Pepper wings, it only makes me wonder how many more chickens I could have eaten, if only they'd been coated in the delectable sauce those folks use.

I wonder where that sauce came from.

Probably God.

Or a cookbook.