INVENTION OF NUGGETS

Before McDonald's pioneered McNuggets for fast food consumption, a Cornell University researcher developed bite-size breaded chicken sticks that could be easily fried and frozen.

Robert C. Baker Invents Chicken Nuggets

Nuggets manufacturing
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Though the origin of chicken nuggets, like so many food items, remains disputed, it’s commonly accepted that agricultural scientist Robert C. Baker invented chicken nuggets in a laboratory at Cornell University in 1963. They were among dozens of poultry products he developed during his career, including turkey ham and chicken hot dogs, helping to greatly expand the U.S. poultry industry.
“Robert C. Baker was both a product of changes going on in the poultry world and a driver of those changes,” says Striffler. “Industry leaders quickly realized that real profit would not so much come from producing more chicken, but by doing more to chicken. Hence, further processing.”
Baker’s innovation was to mold boneless bite-size morsels from ground, skinless chicken (often from the little-used parts of the bird), and encase them in a breading perfectly engineered to solve two key problems: It stayed put through both frying and freezing, critical for mass production and transportation. His “chicken sticks” earned him the nickname the “George Washington Carver of chicken.”
Baker did not patent chicken nuggets. Instead, he mailed the recipe to hundreds of American companies who would later profit from his invention. But it would take a new health trend for Americans to truly embrace the chicken nugget.

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