What's Slaying the All-American Burger?

After 5 years of steady growth, chicken comes home to roost

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Could the hamburger, the long-reigning, all-American favorite, finally be toast?

Beef burgers made their name as a workingman’s meal during the Great Depression—before evolving into the symbol of American corporatism and cultural hegemony that they have become. The Economist, singing the praises of the burger, once called it “a symbol of the reassuring predictability, the pre-packaged straightforwardness, the sheer lack of pretension of American life.”

But move over, burger—chicken is having a moment.

For the first time in a century, Americans are gobbling up more of the humble bird—much of it in the form of fried chicken drumsticks, crispy chicken sandwiches and chicken nuggets—than double cheeseburgers, sliders and T-bones.

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