Flats by Neha Seenarine, arts & life editor

Chicken wing flats are underappreciated.

When I order wings as an appetizer at a restaurant, there’s one thing I always notice: the chicken wing flats are left for last. My friends always seem to go for the drum pieces instead, but flats have an underrated beauty to them.

The flats are made up of two bones with dark chicken meat between them. People prefer its counterpart, the drum, because it only has one bone. That’s a lazy excuse not to enjoy the flat.

The shape of the flat is perfect every time. When fried chicken wings are being cooked, they are placed alternatingly in egg and flour before frying. The flat allows the flour coating to be thin and even when the wing is being cooked.

Whereas, when the drum is being fried, the batter tends to be at the head of the piece. This leads to the final product having more chunky parts of fried batter, which may distract from the chicken portion. The flat’s coating is thin and crispy leading its consumer right to what they want, the chicken.

When you order chicken wings at a restaurant, the common follow-up question from your server is, “Would you like ranch or blue cheese with that?” Whether your wings are coated in a sauce or bare, it is almost always better complimented with a sauce.

Flats hold the sauce better than chicken wing drums. Whichever dressing you prefer, they are usually served in a little container. With flats, it is easier to dip the wing in and get an even coat of dressing on it. This is beneficial because if you’re sharing the dressing with anyone else at the table, there’s less chance of double-dipping. Also, when you dip the drum, the proportions of the wing are not even because it’s fat at the top and the width descends making it difficult to cover.

Although I’m aware the chicken wing flats are not a fan-favorite, I know their worth. In the end, there’s always more for me.

Drums by Connor Coar, contributing writer

Let me paint you a picture. You and your friends are watching the Super Bowl at a restaurant, bar or even in your dorm room. It is a calm environment and you are trying to enjoy time with the people around you.

The last thing that you want is to work for the food you are eating. That is exactly what happens when you eat wing flats: you have to work your way around the two bones to get to the chicken.

Of course, you could make a somewhat reasonable case for wing flats. You can break it like a wishbone and then pick at the chicken with your fingers, but that causes too many unnecessary steps when you are trying to watch a game.

The ratio of bone to chicken is a lot less in a wing drum than a wing flat. Many times, the thickness of the entire wing flat is more of the bone than the actual chicken which can discourage people very quickly after taking their first bite.

When I am eating a wing drum, I don’t need to inspect the wing to see where I can take my first bite. All I need to do is take a bite anywhere on the wing and enjoy it along with the blue cheese that is on the bone.

When you dunk a wing flat into a small blue cheese container, all of the sauce ends up on the bone that is covered by the bread batter. On the flip side, when you want to get blue cheese on your wing drum, you can easily apply the dressing to the wing and do not have to bite into a bone.

Most people also have some sort of beverage to go along with the wings to wash down after every few bites, so you would need a free hand to be able to perform such actions.

Whether you are a wing connoisseur or a casual fan of the finger food, I think that it is safe to say that you can get some sort of moral win after working to get the chicken for wing flats. However, wing drums bring a certain type of peace during the big game.