Consumers cannot expect boneless chicken wings to actually be free of bones, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled Thursday, rejecting claims by a restaurant patron who suffered serious medical complications from getting a bone stuck in his throat.
Michael Berkheimer was dining with his wife and friends at a wing joint in Hamilton, Ohio, and had ordered the usual — boneless wings with parmesan garlic sauce — when he felt a bite-size piece of meat go down the wrong way. Three days later, feverish and unable to keep food down, Berkeimer went to the emergency room, where a doctor discovered a long, thin bone that had torn his esophagus and caused an infection.
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In a 4-3 ruling, the Supreme Court said Thursday that “boneless wings” refers to a cooking style, and that Berkheimer should’ve been on guard against bones since it’s common knowledge that chickens have bones. The high court sided with lower courts that had dismissed Berkheimer’s suit.
Boneless is a “cooking style?” No. It’s which bag of chicken I pull out of the freezer before I even turn the oven on. I’m not going to sous vide the fucking bones out of my wings.
If the restaurant is deboning wings to order, fine. I’ll accept that. But then that shit had better be on the menu so I know to be careful.
Boneless wings are usually breaded chunks of rib meat, not actually wings at all. Sometimes a cooking style starts with cutting raw meat off of bones and into don’t-call-them-nuggets.