Chicken Wings

MAY 22

Six hours ago I ate chicken wings for the first time.

I am not a vegetarian. I am not allergic. I am not on a diet. I am not a 12-year-old. In fact, in the fall, I’m going to be a 20-year-old sophomore at Yale University.

So why, in 20 years as a successful student and musician, as a normally social, averagely adventurous person, have I never before taken a single solitary bite of a chicken wing?

I am, as I announce almost daily to anyone who tries to feed me, invite me to a meal, take me to a buffet, offer me a snack, or otherwise entice me to ingest something that appears to have a flavor, spice, or unexpected texture, a picky eater. A very picky eater.

So picky, in fact, that my personal e-mail address is pickyeater. (Probably an error in judgment.) So picky that my elementary school classmates would bring special, individualized desserts for me on their own birthdays. So picky that whenever someone says, “Oh, I’m picky too,” anyone in the vicinity who has eaten with me butts in with a sadistic laugh and an, “Uh, no, he’s really picky.”

Many people misperceive my pickiness as being more specifically bizarre than it is. One of my best friend’s family is convinced that I only eat food that is white. Like actually completely white. So like rice and white bread and pasta. (Although, in pasta’s defense, it’s sorta yellowish.) This is not the case. I also eat food that is orange (carrots, sweet potatoes), red (red peppers), green (celery, lettuce, peas), and brown (banana bread?). To be fair, I do not think I eat any food that is blue or purple. I also do not tend to eat foods that are more than one color: so like…salad…soup…

         Or more than one texture.

         A typical day for me includes cheerios with skim milk, banana, and diluted white grape juice for breakfast. For lunch, at home at least, I’ll usually eat vanilla and coffee yogurt mixed together, applesauce (which is my favorite food, by the way), and some sort of bread product. My dinner options include macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets, mozzarella sticks, pizza (no sauce, just mozzarella), pasta (just butter, no sauce or cheese), or more yogurt or Cheerios – basically an overindulgent children’s menu.

         On the penultimate day in New Haven, before embarking on my summer after freshman year, I joined a group of friends who were eating at a picnic table in a lovely courtyard. They were eating Thai food (of which, of course, I am a great connoisseur). I was offered some sort of dish which I could not identify and I said I would go around the corner to buy something for myself. One of my closer friends there announced, “He’s a really picky eater. He just eats mozzarella sticks and bread.” Can’t really argue with her there.

         Someone asked me, “What’s your favorite type of food?”

         I responded, “Applesauce” which apparently is not a type of food – who knew?

         As I left the courtyard in search of something I would eat, I had a sudden resolve. I was tired of people thinking of me as the picky eater – I hardly gave my picky eating much thought. It had become a subconscious part of my existence. Find the plainest looking things and ask for them to be made plainer. I was used to it. I wasn’t unhealthy. I wasn’t ostracized for my weird ways. But there was no question things would be exponentially easier if I could change.

         So, as I crossed the street, I decided that the way to do it was to try a new food every day this summer and to write about it. Despite the state of my dorm room, I am in fact an incredibly organized person: I have a list of all the books I’ve read since the end of 4^th grade. I have a box with index cards documenting every play I’ve ever seen. On New Year’s Eve, I make a list of the 50 Most Impactful People in my life that year. (It’s a cool exercise – you should try it.) Perhaps, my picky eating wasn’t getting better because it was the only part of my life that wasn’t hyper-organized. Compiling my adventures with eating ought to do the trick.

         I returned to the courtyard with purchased food in hand and stirred soul shining in my determined breast.

         “Let me guess what you got,” my friend said. She thought a moment. “Mozzarella sticks.”

         She was right.

         This chronicle has very few rules. Every day I’ll try a new food. Or try to try a new food. I can have as much of it or as little as I like, as long as I swallow it. I’m not doing this to impress you. It doesn’t need to be alligator butt doused in duck sauce. It can be something totally normal that I’ve just never tasted. Like ketchup. Just because someone offers me something, I’m not required to eat it.

          I don’t like chocolate. Chill your pants. There are a small but mighty number of us in existence. As such, I’m not trying to change that dislike this summer – I’m simply not a chocolate fan.

         I don’t think I’ll ever really be a master of the culinary world. Certainly not by the end of the summer. The goal for the next three months is not to shed my picky eating – it’s to break down my unwillingness to try new foods, to show myself that there’s nothing wrong with disliking something as long as you let yourself give it a chance. I may walk away from this summer with 30 new foods. I may walk away from this summer with one. But that’s okay. The proof is in the pudding. As long as it’s vanilla. The point is that I’m going to try.

         So back to the chicken wings.

         Yeah.

         I went to join a bunch of friends from college at one friend’s parents’ Asian comfort food restaurant. Since the only Asian cuisine I eat are boiled noodles with absolutely nothing on them (it’s hell to explain that one for over-the-phone take-out) and naan (which is extraordinarily plain bread), I figured it could be a rough start. Oh, I also eat fortune cookies.

         It was not an auspicious beginning. The table had ordered a number of sides before I arrived – something unidentifiable which was apparently ribs (how would I know?) and something which looked like a bowl of peas but which was actually called edamame and appeared to be something I would definitely eat. The waitress removed the edamame before I could try it. Edamame is apparently a preparation of immature soybeans. I can relate.

Everyone placed their order and by the time the waitress got to me, I had scanned the menu in terror three times through, praying that I’d find “grilled cheese” in small print or that perhaps Choy Sum was Chinese for “chicken fingers.”

         I decided to enlist help so I told my friend across from me (with whom I have never dined before), “I’m a really picky eater, but I’ve decided to try new foods. What should I order? What’s plain?” He said something to the effect of, “Why are you asking me?”

         It’s okay. I can fight this battle on my own.

         The waitress was staring at me expectantly now so I, glancing at the dishes available in front of me, said, “I’m just going to eat these sides.”

         At least I didn’t have to pay for them.

          The choices before me were the strange looking ribs and the chicken wings. There were several things to take into consideration. First of all, most of my friends were using chopsticks – I had never used chopsticks with any success so I needed to pick the food that could be least conspicuously eaten with a fork and a knife. The ribs looked exceedingly chopsticks-friendly. The chicken wings also looked somewhat like chicken fingers. Sort of. But with a bone.

         I would go for the chicken wings. Having only skimmed the menu, I missed that the Chicken Wings did say, “With honey and soy.” My biggest struggle, in terms of trying new foods, is tastes and textures mixed together. My taste buds are so used to the daily monotonous, familiar sensations that when I eat anything more eclectic, my mouth gets overwhelmed.

         I eat chicken fingers and chicken nuggets all the time. They’re fried. Heavily breaded. No bone. Go down easily. You don’t even realize there’s meat texture. I’ve had extremely limited experience with other kinds of chicken.

         My first challenge was cutting the wings into a tiny piece that I felt comfortable attempting to swallow. It was a struggle. That chicken does not want to give up its skin. I finally yanked off a piece of it. I was expecting the entire table to be staring at me with pride and wonder as I put it in my mouth: no one even noticed. Or would have cared.

         Chicken wings have a weird-ass texture. There’s some bizarre bumpy things in them – like pieces of bone or something. Who even knows. Also the meat part is sticky and chewy. Not my textures of choice. Honey is also sticky. I was mainly distracted by the unexpected flavor burst.

         I got the first bite down though. Then I gulped down a glass of water, my typical new-food safety crutch. A few minutes later, I pulled off a second bite. And then a third.

         Then I was done for the day. To clarify, these bites were about the smallest unit of wing possible. Not taking any more credit than I deserve.

         It was a pretty bad start.

         I’m working on it.