Bone-In Wings

A Journey Of Discovery

Recently, the evergreen topic of Wings came up in a relatively laid back meeting at work. The details are hazy, as it was a fairly calm conversation. The exact kind you have on a Friday when you don’t really want to focus on work, so instead you shoot the shit. However, after making my very reasonable claim that Boneless are better than Bone-In, the tone changed. Suddenly, I was bombarded with a wave of dissent. This aggression was spearheaded by one man, who we will refer to as Frank.

Frank is a good man. I like and respect him quite a bit. He’s a thoughtful and kind mentor as well as a wonderful leader. But in this moment, he changed. His attack on Boneless wings was made with a fervor unlike anything I’d ever seen from him. I made my standard, time worn defense of Boneless wings (The 4 C’s of Chicken: Cleaner, Consistent, Convenient and CAW-CAW.), but Frank would not relent.

After coming to the realization that he would not be convinced, I changed course. As a former vegetarian, one of the biggest negatives for me is a silly one. I just don’t like having to eat things with bones in em. It makes the fact that the food was once part of an animal more prominent in my mind, and it just kinda makes me a bit uncomfortable. I briefly explained this aversion, looking to just move away from the conversation entirely. But Frank’s response came in harsh.

“Just be a man and eat off the bone”

So I did just that. The following is a big ol review of the concept of Bone-In wings. I went out and got 8 Bone-In wings along with an order of Parmesan Fries from Wingstop. 4 were Classic Buffalo, 4 were Louisiana Dry Rub. I went with these flavors because Classic Buffalo Sauce slaps and someone in a discord call I was hanging out in said that the Louisiana Dry was good. It ended up working out as I got a truly sauced up experience, as well as one with less distractions from the Wings themselves.

If this were a good post, this is where a picture of a bag of wings sitting on my desk would be. There would also be pictures of individual wings illustrating the points I make, as well as some godawful visual edit of a bad joke that took entirely too much time to make (The King at the end of this post was like 2 hours of work and $100 of real money spent on buying Photoshop). However, I genuinely didn’t think I was going to sit down and write this when I ordered the food, so I didn’t take a bunch of pics. I just wanted to give Bone-In wings a try again after not eating them in a very long time.

Instead, this is a bad post that is going to be a fairly directionless. I’m realizing now that I really don’t have all that much to say. And not having the ability to insert pictures to punctuate my thoughts scares me. So before we jump into what is going to more or less be a rant about how much I dislike Bone-In wings, enjoy this picture of team Chaotix from Sonic Heroes.

Dude, Bone-In Wings are just bad. Okay, maybe not bad, just a waste. Wings feel like a pretty inherently simple food. You don’t dine on em, you munch em. And if I’m munchin, the last thing I want is bones gettin in the way. The meat is inconsistent. Every bite is a journey where you might be going to a beach of juicy flesh and crispy skin, or a swamp of funky connective tissue and cartilage. I’ll freely admit that the absolute BEST bite of a Bone-In wing is pretty solid, but all bites are not created equal. Some just suck. You have to actively work for your food, avoiding all the inedible garbage near those hand-holds.

And it’s not even like the bites are pleasant on a mechanical level either. Chomping into an apple or a corndog makes sense. The food is a sensible size for your human mouth. The same is not true for wings. All the work is laid on your front four incisors. You’re stuck trying to find a way to clamp onto what little meat there is, whether a Drum or a Flat. For drums, the first few bites are fine, but the top and bottom are just miserable to try to get the final bits of meat from. Flats never feel right on the first bite, there just isn’t enough real estate for your teeth to clamp onto. And don’t even get me started on the meat that’s IN BETWEEN THE 2 BONES. Why the fuck is there meat there? It’s so goddamn hard to even get to. Eating a Boneless wing is just popping a funky flavor bomb down your gullet, whereas eating a Bone-In wing makes me feel like a French Peasant in the 1700s trying to get some protein in before they behead Robespierre.

Also, how are you meant to dip these things? Wings always come with either Ranch or Blue Cheese specifically for dipping. But with Bone-In, I genuinely have no idea how that is supposed to work. You can’t go from the top down (Like you do for every other dippable food under the sun) because then you would be biting directly into bone. Going from the side is a little better, but you can only do that at the start of the wing. It’s just an awkward mess of an activity. Plus you gotta worry about getting sauce or a spice rub directly on your lips. Nobody wants to make out with a Horse’s Salt Lick, but that’s what the big wigs at Bone-In(c) want you to experience. WAKE UP SHEEPLE.

Howdy, Editor Flamoctapus here! After rereading this before posting I can confirm that the Bone-In(c) joke is the only funny part of this whole thing.. However, the joke is so good that the project is now an overwhelming success in my mind.

I’m pretty bored of this conversation. Half way through that paragraph I got distracted and googled “Why hasn;t anyone ever kicked over Stonehenge”. Apparently the answer is that it would require a plane crashing into it. Let’s wrap this up. I did take one picture at the end of my meal. How’d I do?

This is also another point against Bone-In by the way. I guarantee you that someone I show this picture to will give me shit for leaving too much meat on these. That’s ridiculous. Also, I lied at the start of this. I ordered 10 total wings, not 8. I just threw out the last 2 because they sucked. Claiming that I only got 8 was just to make the pic match up with the text. By the way, check out the wing that came Pre-Broken. A legitimate safety hazard. Unbelievable.

I hope over the past few words I’ve been able to Cool off Frank’s Red Hot takes about my chicken preferences. Hope ya’ll have a good 2022. Much Love.

Shout out to Frank, who’s name is definitely not Frank. But at least it made a fun pun. I wrote this while not sober and I’m posting without any editing, or having someone read it to make sure it’s like, legible. Hope it wasn’t super offensive or something. Goodnight!