DESIGNER

Diego Guevara

PROFILE/DESCRIPTION

Courtesy of The New York Times: How Chicken Tenders Conquered America

Fifty years ago, the breaded, fried chicken tender as we know it was invented in Manchester, N.H.

At least, that’s what they say in Manchester. Such claims are usually impossible to prove, and the picture is clouded in this case because of the loose way the term chicken tender gets thrown around.

Those who are not particular about poultry terminology use tender to refer to any thin strip of boneless chicken. To people in Manchester and to chicken farmers, though, it means something specific: the tenderloin, a muscle along the breastbone that gets very little exercise, hence its tenderness. Restaurants were cooking chicken sticks and chicken fingers before 1974. So far, though, nobody has seriously challenged Manchester’s status as first in the nation to embrace the true tender.