Nuggets of Gold - (Politics and Culture in the Twentieth-Century South) by Patrick Dixon

About the Book

"Nuggets of Gold offers a new interpretation of the place of industrial food production, consumption, and conceptions of eating and health within the contemporary American died by explaining the origins, development, and ultimately the success of further processed chicken meals. Patrick Dixon illuminates how McDonald's Chicken McNugget-the flagship product of further processed chicken-achieved symbolic status as an instructive item within the American diet. But, for reasons that were different from those commonly identified by critics. In his multilayered approach, Dixon also connects the inextricable intertwined stories of workers and industrialists with restauranteurs and consumers-the former geographically moored within the South and the latter divers and nationwide. In so doing, he reveals the complex interdependency of American Chicken and the American South"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

For McDonald's, the Chicken McNugget, the flagship product of further processed chicken, represented a once-in-a-generation innovation, a snack item that quickly evolved into a meal, spawned a legion of imitators, and gained a large share of the global poultry market. Yet, almost as soon as the McNugget made its North American debut, it quickly became the subject of opprobrium and ridicule, taking on a symbolic status among serious food connoisseurs as an indication of Americans' culinary decline and a growing disconnection between diners and the origins of the food that they ate.

During a time of rising beef prices and growing health concerns regarding red meats, the Chicken McNugget was received as a lighter alternative to traditional burger meals, clean and easy to consume, popular with children, and adaptable to busy "on-the-go" lifestyles of working parents. Consumers understood that they were not purchasing a premium product made from the finest cuts but selected the McNugget as a rational economic purchase that represented a new way of dining.

In reassembling the rise of poultry in the United States, Nuggets of Gold presents a multilayered approach, connecting the entwined stories of workers and industrialists with restauranteurs and consumers, the former geographically moored within the South, the latter diverse and nationwide. Patrick Dixon centers further processed chicken within an analysis of the U.S. food system that demonstrates that consumers did not unwittingly succumb to a "junk food" diet but made deliberate and aspirational decisions based on conceptions of leisure, lifestyle, and bodily needs.

Review Quotes

A thoughtful and thorough examination. . . . Its storytelling approach makes the writing accessible, and its extensive references will please scholars.--J. M. Deutsch "Drexel University"

Although there has been a fair amount written about the poultry industry and the rise of chicken in the American diet, most focuses on the last quarter century, or more or less from the 1990s onward--particularly when immigrant workers became so important to the industry. To the extent that an earlier history of the poultry industry has been written it has either come from industry leaders themselves or painted in overly broad strokes. Nuggets of Gold fills that void in a big way--telling us how the industry developed after WWII, the cultural-political-economic factors shaping shifts in consumption/diet, and earlier labor history that has largely been ignored.--Steve Striffler "author of Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America's Favorite Food"

At its heart, Nuggets of Gold lays out the labor, agricultural, and business history that explain how golden chicken nuggets became a staple of the American diet. An in-depth, highly readable book.--Bartow J. Elmore "author of Country Capitalism: How Corporations from the American South Remade Our Economy and the Planet"

About the Author

PATRICK DIXON is a research analyst at the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, the managing editor of LABOR: Studies in Working-Class History, and a founding member of the Labor Radio Podcast Network. He graduated from Georgetown University with a doctoral degree in history in 2015. Dixon is originally from Dorset in the United Kingdom. His interest in the themes represented in this book is in part the product of his own experiences growing up in a rural community and working in a wide variety of hourly jobs, including in the restaurant and leisure sectors.