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Patrick Dixon

“Further processing” is an industry term and refers to the steps that are taken to prepare products after a bird has been defeathered and dismembered. By the 1960s, rather than purchasing entire birds, many consumers started to opt for prepackaged wings, legs, and breasts. This left behind many edible components like skin, neck, back, and organ meats that had historically all been eaten in various shapes and forms, but which by this point were often discarded or sold as pet food for pennies on the dollar.

When breasts and wings were marketed and priced as premium cuts, I think consumers concluded that what remained was somehow deficient or “bad meat,” which really wasn’t true from a nutritional standpoint. The puzzle remained whether poultry companies could make productive use of these components; further processing represented a series of new methods whereby they could be repurposed for consumers in ways that were convincingly appetizing.

While further processed chicken is reliant upon new forms of technology to mechanically reclaim meat from the carcass, it draws upon a much older tradition of reuse and repurposing, albeit with the aid of modern chemistry and adapted to a more contemporary form of dining. In this sense, I think further processed chicken is more of a consequence or an outcome of postwar attitudes toward waste and disposability, one that was shaped by approaches to food and dining that were ascendant in the 1980s: a desire for the new and the novel, a move away from traditional conceptions of home dining, and a growing interest in labor-saving meals to cut back on food preparation times.