Arts & Humanities Campus News

Book details the historical success of controversial fast-food item

In “Nuggets of Gold,” Patrick Dixon looks back at the history of the Chicken McNugget and its impact on the culinary world and American culture.

At the creation of the flagship product, the McNugget represented a once-in-a-generation innovation, a snack that quickly evolved into a meal spawned a legion of imitators and gained a large share of the global poultry market. However, as the McNugget hit the North American market, it became the subject of opprobrium and ridicule. Serious food connoisseurs saw the McNugget as an indication of the decline of the American culinary industry and a growing disconnection between diners and the origins of foods.

When beef prices and health concerns over red meats rose, the Chicken McNugget was received as a lighter alternative to traditional burger meals. It was considered clean and easier to consume and it was popular with children and busy “on-the-go” working parents. While consumers knew that they were not purchasing a premium product, they continued to select the McNugget as a rational economic decision that represented a new way of dining.

This book presents a multilayered approach, connecting the entwining stories and industrialists with restaurateurs and consumers, the former geographically moored within the South, the latter diverse and nationwide. Dixon centers processed chicken within an analysis of the American food system, demonstrating that consumers did not unwittingly succumb to a “junk food” diet but made deliberate and aspirational decisions based on conceptions of leisure, lifestyle and bodily needs.