Whether it's out of the oven at home or from the drive-thru at the fast-food place down the street, we just can't seem to get enough of em'.

無論是家裡剛出爐的還是街邊速食店的得來速，我們似乎都吃不夠。

But who actually invented chicken nuggets?

但究竟是誰發明了雞塊？

Let's find out on today's episode of Colossal Questions.

讓我們在 Colossal Questions 今天的這一集影片中找出答案吧。

Just like many of our favorite modern foods, the origin of the chicken nugget is a bit murky, and no one can say for absolute certain who invented em'.

就像我們最喜歡的許多現代食物一樣，雞塊的起源有點不太確定，沒有人能肯定地說是誰發明的。

That being said, a scientist and professor named Robert C. Baker is most often credited with inventing chicken nuggets in his lab at Cornell University in the early '60s.

話雖如此，一位名叫 Robert C. Baker 的科學家兼教授普遍被認為是在 1960 年代初期在康乃爾大學的實驗室中發明了雞塊。

Whether he was the true innovator of the nugget or not, Robert C. Baker was clearly passionate about bird meat.

無論他是否是真的創造了雞塊， Robert C. Baker 顯然對禽肉充滿熱情。

He came up with more than 40 new ways to prepare poultry with inventions like chicken hot dogs, ground chicken, and whatever turkey ham is.

他發明了 40 多種烹飪家禽的新方法，例如雞肉熱狗、碎雞肉和叫火雞火腿的不知道什麼東西。

Okay, so that's who likely invented the fast-food staple, but why was Baker trying to create a new concoction and how did he do it?

沒錯，Baker 可能就是速食主食的發明者，但他為什麼要嘗試創造一種新的食品，他又是怎麼做到的呢？

The nugget was invented to solve a big problem for the slumping chicken industry.

雞塊的發明是為了解決雞肉行業衰退的一個大問題。

At the time, almost all chickens were sold whole, which kind of made it inconvenient.

當時幾乎所有的雞都是整隻賣的，有點不方便。

A whole chicken wasn't thought to be quite enough meat to feed an entire family, but it was definitely too much for just one person.

大眾認為一整隻雞不足以餵飽一家子，但對一個人來說又太多了。

On top of that, roasting a whole chicken takes a lot of time and effort, and families were finding they had less and less time to dedicate to making more complicated meals.

最重要的是，烤整隻雞需要花費大量時間和精力，而且家家戶戶發現他們用於製作更複雜的飯菜的時間越來越少。

Now with these new-fangled chicken nuggets, there was finally a way to package poultry in easy bite-sized servings that could be frozen and fried up quickly.

現在有了這些新奇的雞塊，終於有一種方法可以將家禽包裝成一口大小的食物，可以快速冷凍和油炸。

Problem solved.

問題就這樣解決了。

Baker's big innovation that made the chicken nugget possible was because of another one of his poultry creations: ground chicken.

Baker 的重大創新讓雞塊可以成功是因為他的另一種家禽類產品：碎雞肉。

He molded chunks of skinless ground-up chicken meat and covered them with breading.

他將大塊的去皮雞肉磨碎，然後在上面裹上麵包屑。

The breading is actually the key.

撒上的麵包屑其實是關鍵。

It holds the morsels of meat together while sitting in a freezer or frying in a pan.

當冰在冰箱或在平底鍋裡煎炸時，它會將肉塊抓住。

And almost overnight, chicken went from a food not quite fit for a feast to one of the most popular proteins in the country, all by turning chicken into a handheld, well, nugget.

幾乎在一夜之間，雞肉從一種不太適合盛宴的食物變成了該國最受歡迎富有蛋白質的食物之一，所有這一切都是通過將雞肉變成手拿式的雞塊。

So, next time you're plowing through a pile of dino-shaped nuggets, you can thank a poultry pioneer for making it his passion project to bring us the perfect chicken snack and nailing it.

所以，下次當你費勁地吃一堆恐龍形狀的雞塊時，你可以感謝一位家禽先驅將其作為他富含熱情的計畫，為我們帶來完美的雞肉點心而且做的很棒。