Baker is generally considered the father of the chicken nugget, inventing it in his Cornell University laboratory in 1963. Though it's hard to know who came first, agricultural scientist Robert C. (OK, I do too.) The nugget is finger-friendly. That makes it perfect for kids, especially when clothed in the crispy coating of nug-form. And it's relatively bland, a blank protein canvas for sauces, breading, dips or other flavors. As The Guardian writes, only ' two cents for every dollar spent on a fast-food chicken goes to poultry workers.' Poultry processing was a highly dangerous job before the pandemic, and since its onset, poultry workers have been some of the hardest hit by the virus, along with all meat processing workers.įor the consumer - maybe especially the parent - chicken's appeal comes from the fact you can stretch it, using bones to make broth, shredding leftover bits into chicken salad, for example. Of course, its inexpensiveness comes at a price, including workers' lives. It's one the cheapest meats you can purchase, and has been since at least the 1960s (though that information comes from the National Chicken Council, so maybe take your chicken with a grain of salt).

Leaving aside that Austin may simply have a favorite, as many children do, or be picky and hangry (again, happens a lot with kids), chicken is the most popular meat in the United States, according to The Guardian, which calls the mighty chicken nugget ' the true symbol of our era.' Chicken's popularity can in large part be traced to its thriftiness.

And Dana Sue, of course, will make everything better.

It's troubling that 'Sweet Magnolias' chose to make one of its only young characters of color poor. It should also be noted that Austin is a child of color - one of the very few we've seen on this show - and Dana Sue is a white woman. This is a lot of gossiping in a church yard with the child in question literally in earshot. Well, as much as they'll let me'), Dana Sue's estranged husband informs her he went to school with Austin's father, and the family is poor. After a teenaged counselor gossips about the child ('the middle child of five') and the pastor both shuts down the gossip and continues to gossip herself (Austin's father is 'underemployed' and the family 'haven't joined yet, but I'm helping as much as I can. Dino chicken nuggets.Īustin's meltdown and his specific food preference could signal that the young character is perhaps neurodivergent, but that's not the direction 'Sweet Magnolias' decides to go. One of the main characters, Dana Sue (Brooke Elliott) a chef and mother, has volunteered to cook and distribute food at the local vacation Bible school.Īnd one of the child campers, Austin (Jackson Abram), gets very upset when he doesn't find chicken nuggets on the lunch table. In 'Sweet Magnolias,' the show about three southern women dealing with divorce, children and men in a small, South Carolina town, dino nuggets play a pivotal role. Related: Bless their hearts: The women of Netflix's 'Sweet Magnolias' need to do more than pour it out What is it about these Cretaceous bites? Where did they come from? Why are they so tasty? And why - this question comes from my son - don't I have more of them waiting in the freezer right now?

In the second season of the Netflix hit show ' Sweet Magnolias,' dino nuggets get their own significant plotline. The food is more than a snack, but a cultural icon, representing not simply a crudely rendered T-Rex but home, innocence, belonging. Or, as my son calls them, with reverence: chicky chicky nug nugs. Specifically, dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets. And they are a food my child will never turn down. Tom Haverford of ' Parks and Recreation' likely had a special name for them.

Dino nuggets shapes