{
 "schema": 1,
 "type": "fry",
 "updated": "2026-09-16",
 "images": [],
 "id": "wing-cut",
 "names": {
  "name": "the wing cut",
  "sort": "wing cut",
  "aliases": [
   "breaking down a wing",
   "segmenting",
   "jointing the wing"
  ],
  "said": "Two cuts, three pieces, two of them sold. A kitchen says segmenting; a menu says wings."
 },
 "region": [
  "us"
 ],
 "facets": {
  "kind": "cut",
  "cut": "party wing"
 },
 "text": {
  "what": "Where the knife goes on a chicken wing. The wing comes off the bird in three segments and the cook cuts it at both joints: the drumette, shaped like a small drumstick and white meat; the middle flat, also called the wingette, containing two bones; and the tip, often discarded or used for stock. Two pieces go in the basket, so one wing off the bird sells as two wings on a menu.",
  "story": "The cut is why the wing could be given away in 1964 and counted by the piece ever since. Chicken wings were inexpensive and undesirable then, normally thrown away or kept for soups and stock — the tip's job, extended to the whole limb. Cutting at the joints turned an offcut into a countable serving: twenty pieces is roughly ten birds' worth of one wing each, and a menu that says twenty wings is selling ten.\n\nSome restaurants leave the tip attached to the flat and serve it that way. In Japan the wing is frequently separated into teba-moto, wing base, and teba-saki, wing tip. In Washington, D.C. carryouts the wing goes into the oil whole and comes out uncut, which is how John Young sold them in Buffalo from 1961.\n\n*Inference —* every argument downstream starts here. Flats against drums is an argument about which of these two pieces you get; all-flats is a request that breaks a kitchen's yield, because one bird produces exactly one of each.",
  "how": "Find the two joints by flexing the wing; the cartilage gives and the bone does not. Cut through the joint, not through bone — a knife through the gap needs no force and leaves no splinters. First cut separates the drumette from the flat, second takes the tip off the flat. Keep the tips: boil them for stock, where they have more collagen per gram than either piece that got sold. A grocery sells the two kept pieces already split as party wings.",
  "today": "Most American wings arrive at the shop pre-split and frozen, sold as party wings or wing sections, so the cut happens at a processing plant rather than on a bar's board. *Inference —* that is also why a shop can offer all flats at a premium: someone upstream already sorted them."
 },
 "kin": [
  {
   "to": "wing",
   "as": "The word this cut redefines: what a menu calls a wing is one of the two pieces it makes.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "drumette",
   "as": "The upper piece this cut frees, white meat on one bone.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "flat",
   "as": "The middle piece, two bones and the most skin, which is the argument's other side.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "wing-tip",
   "as": "The third piece, usually cut off and boiled for stock rather than sold.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "party-wing",
   "as": "What a grocery calls the two kept pieces when it sells them already split.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "all-flats",
   "as": "The request this cut cannot grant without somebody upstream sorting a case.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "the-flat-and-the-drum",
   "as": "The argument this cut creates, with both sides said in full.",
   "rel": "story"
  },
  {
   "to": "boneless-wings",
   "as": "Skips this entirely — breast meat chunked, no joints to find.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "to": "fried-rice-plate",
   "as": "Skips it too: D.C. carryouts fry the wing whole, tip and all.",
   "rel": "dish"
  },
  {
   "to": "wing-basket",
   "as": "Why a basket of twenty is ten birds' worth of one wing each.",
   "rel": "whole"
  }
 ],
 "sources": [
  "s:wp-buffalo-wing",
  "s:wp-chicken-as-food",
  "s:wp-poultry",
  "s:wp-american-chinese-cuisine"
 ],
 "provenance": {
  "default": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-chicken-as-food"
  },
  "fields": {
   "text.how": {
    "tier": "tradition",
    "note": "knife technique is trade practice; the collagen claim is general and unmeasured here"
   },
   "text.story": {
    "tier": "cited",
    "source": "s:wp-buffalo-wing",
    "note": "closing paragraph marked inference"
   },
   "text.today": {
    "tier": "tradition",
    "note": "closing sentence marked inference"
   },
   "names.said": {
    "tier": "tradition"
   }
  }
 },
 "confidence": "high",
 "blurb": "Where the knife goes on a chicken wing. The wing comes off the bird in three segments and the cook cuts it at both joints: the drumette, shaped like a small drumstick and white meat; the middle flat, also called the…",
 "region_terms": [
  {
   "key": "us",
   "name": "The United States",
   "state": null,
   "note": "use when a node belongs to the whole country"
  }
 ],
 "kin_out": [
  {
   "to": "wing",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "wing",
   "as": "The word this cut redefines: what a menu calls a wing is one of the two pieces it makes.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "drumette",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "drumette",
   "as": "The upper piece this cut frees, white meat on one bone.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "flat",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "flat",
   "as": "The middle piece, two bones and the most skin, which is the argument's other side.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "wing-tip",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "wing tip",
   "as": "The third piece, usually cut off and boiled for stock rather than sold.",
   "rel": "part"
  },
  {
   "to": "party-wing",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "party wing",
   "as": "What a grocery calls the two kept pieces when it sells them already split.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "all-flats",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "all flats",
   "as": "The request this cut cannot grant without somebody upstream sorting a case.",
   "rel": "term"
  },
  {
   "to": "the-flat-and-the-drum",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The flat and the drum",
   "as": "The argument this cut creates, with both sides said in full.",
   "rel": "story"
  },
  {
   "to": "boneless-wings",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "boneless wings",
   "as": "Skips this entirely — breast meat chunked, no joints to find.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "to": "fried-rice-plate",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "the fried rice plate",
   "as": "Skips it too: D.C. carryouts fry the wing whole, tip and all.",
   "rel": "dish"
  },
  {
   "to": "wing-basket",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "the wing basket",
   "as": "Why a basket of twenty is ten birds' worth of one wing each.",
   "rel": "whole"
  }
 ],
 "source_list": [
  {
   "id": "s:wp-buffalo-wing",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Buffalo wing",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_wing",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-chicken-as-food",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Chicken as food",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_as_food",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-poultry",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "Poultry",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16"
  },
  {
   "id": "s:wp-american-chinese-cuisine",
   "kind": "wikipedia",
   "title": "American Chinese cuisine",
   "publisher": "Wikipedia",
   "url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chinese_cuisine",
   "accessed": "2026-09-16"
  }
 ],
 "tiers": {
  "text.what": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-chicken-as-food"
  },
  "text.story": {
   "tier": "cited",
   "source": "s:wp-buffalo-wing",
   "note": "closing paragraph marked inference"
  },
  "text.how": {
   "tier": "tradition",
   "note": "knife technique is trade practice; the collagen claim is general and unmeasured here"
  },
  "text.today": {
   "tier": "tradition",
   "note": "closing sentence marked inference"
  }
 },
 "primary_image": null,
 "tag_facts": [],
 "recognition_facts": [],
 "acclaim": 0,
 "kin_in": [
  {
   "from": "boneless-wings",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "boneless wings",
   "as": "The step this skips entirely: no joints, no tip, no bone.",
   "rel": "contrast"
  },
  {
   "from": "fried-rice-plate",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "the fried rice plate",
   "as": "The step this plate skips: the wing goes in whole, tip and all.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "wing-basket",
   "type": "dish",
   "name": "the wing basket",
   "as": "Why a basket of twenty is ten birds' worth of one wing each.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "boltons-spicy-chicken-and-fish",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Bolton's Spicy Chicken & Fish",
   "as": "Sold as bone-in pieces off one bird rather than as a wing order with its own menu heading.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "chings-hot-wings",
   "type": "place",
   "name": "Ching's Hot Wings",
   "as": "Sells whole wings, tip and all, rather than splitting them.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "us-poultry-and-egg-association",
   "type": "org",
   "name": "U.S. Poultry & Egg Association",
   "as": "Hosts the floor where the machines that make the cut are sold, every January in Atlanta.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "drumette",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "drumette",
   "as": "The knife that makes it: through the joint between humerus and radius.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "flapper",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "flapper",
   "as": "The cut that decides whether this word ever gets said.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "flat",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "flat",
   "as": "Where the second cut goes, and why this piece keeps two bones.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "party-wing",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "party wing",
   "as": "The same two cuts, made by a machine before the bag was sealed.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "wing-tip",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "wing tip",
   "as": "The cut that removes it, the first of the two.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "wing",
   "type": "term",
   "name": "wing",
   "as": "Where the knife goes, and why a wing sells as two.",
   "rel": "fry"
  },
  {
   "from": "the-flat-and-the-drum",
   "type": "story",
   "name": "The flat and the drum",
   "as": "Where the knife goes, which decides everything on this page.",
   "rel": "fry"
  }
 ]
}