I’ll bet you are among the masses who think Chicken Tenders and Chicken Fingers are the same thing. But chicken insiders insist Tenders and Fingers are very different ‘cuts’ of the bird. And after hearing the explanation, I’ve had to reconsider my former ‘beliefs’…
The world was a calm, orderly place before I came across a post from Red-ditor u/NotBruceJustWayne asking, innocently and without malice a fore-thought, “Is there a definitive difference between chicken strips and tenders?”
The aftermath proved unsettling, for more reasons than one. And made me pause to question how many other culinary ‘facts’ I ‘know’ are wrong…
A definitive definition
“[The] Chicken tender is the pectoralis minor, the muscle part of the chicken breast. Chicken strips can be made up of meat from any part of the chicken.”
Classic Chicken Fingers were originally made by breading and frying the tender. But you only get one tender per breast; 2 per chicken. The exploding popularity of the boneless treat led quickly to the practice of cutting whole breasts into strips to satisfy the huge demand.
Okay, but…
Just what is the ‘pectoralis minor’? We can thank Science Direct for a definitive answer… “The chicken pectoralis minor (also called the supracoracoideus in avian anatomy) is the small, strip-like muscle located directly underneath the main breast meat (pectoralis major). In the culinary world, this exact muscle is better known as the chicken tender or tenderloin.” It’s also known as the ‘filet’ in some places…”
If you’ve ever trimmed out a whole chicken breast, you’ll know the tender as the strip that dangles from the bottom/inner surface of the main breast, after the breast has been removed from the bone.
A little history…
“The tale of Chicken Fingers begins in the mid-20th century, a time when American culinary innovat-ion was flourishing,” food witer Derek Firth tells us. “It was in the 1950s that the first iteration of chicken fingers, known then as ‘chicken sticks’, made their debut”
But it wasn’t until Chicken Nuggets came on the scene, in the 1970s, sparking an interest in boneless fried chicken snacks, that Chicken Fingers really took off. By the mid-80s, Chicken Fingers were a staple of bar food and family restaurant menus just about everywhere.
But the Chicken Wing gained supremacy in the chicken finger-foods space in the 90s, relegating Chicken Fingers to its shadow. Happily, Chicken Fingers were, by that time, a staple of North American cuisine, and have remained a family favourite in spite of the persistent supremacy of Wings in the bar-food market an Nuggets in the Fast Food realm.
My take
I’ve always loved Chicken Fingers – whether made from the Tender or just strips cut from the main breast. And I have lots of reasons…
First of all, they’re boneless, which is a treat for anyone who likes to eat chicken bare-handed. And Fingers, thanks to their spear-like shape, are infinitely superior to nuggets or wings for dipping.
Being boneless, Fingers are a better value than classic, bone-in wings. And ‘boneless wings’ are just malformed Fingers, as far as I’m concerned. They’re just cut from breast meat in a similar manner to chicken strips.
And let’s not forget… There are two ‘classes’ of chicken nuggets: ‘real’ (also cut from breast meat) and ‘pink slime’ (extruded and pressed from a slush of mechanically de-boned chicken protein). Most Fast Food nuggets fall into the latter category.
Public Service Announcement:
I have recently discovered a very inexpensive line of frozen products representing themselves as breaded chicken fingers, nuggets, boneless wings and other cuts. Alas, they are all ‘formed’ from ‘pink slime’. Not one is actually cut from whole breast meat, as one would expect for all of those products. Except, maybe, the nuggets. There is a disclaimer on the packages admitting this, albeit in very small print.
Don’t be fooled by prices for chicken products that seem too good to be true. As with all such claims, there is always a catch…
~ Maggie J.