re: Chicken Pulley Bone

My mom would cut whole chickens to fry. Always cut the pulley bone separate. She grew up on a small farm in north Mississippi, and learned to cut a chicken from my grandma after ringing their necks in the yard.

My jackass brother was 6 years older than me and always broke the pulley bone with his thumb to get the short bone. One of the many older-brother maneuvers that I still hold against him to this day.

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My jackass brother was 6 years older than me and always broke the pulley bone with his thumb to get the short bone. One of the many older-brother maneuvers that I still hold against him to this day.

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The person holding the longer piece is said to have good fortune or a wish granted.

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Whatcha know about that 7 bone steak?

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It's called "7 bone" because of the shape of the bone, not because it contains 7 bones. It's cut from the chuck and is similar to the blade chuck roast. The '7' is created as a cross section of the shoulder blade bone.

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Definitely a cut you don’t hear about or see anymore

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That has everything to do with the popularity of the flat iron steak which comes from the chuck and was originally marketed as top blade steak.

In this picture, 2 is the flat iron and is separated from 3 by the 7 bone.


Here's a pic pointing out the 7 bone.


You can also see the top blade in the bottom left corner of the pic. Originally this steak was created by cutting cross sections of the infraspinatus about 1" thick. Notice the large intrusion of sinew in the middle of the steak. This was alleviated by removing the whole infraspinatus and removing the sinew that runs the whole length of the muscle. This method provides 4 steaks per cow.

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That’s what my grandparents called it and was a separate piece of the bird. I surmise that in lean times they cut more ,smaller, pieces of the chicken in order to serve more people.

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It's what I grew up with in the 60s. Generally, you bought a whole chicken back then and cut it up yourself. One set of my grandparents still had chickens and would kill a hen. Chickens were smaller and pieces were smaller.

The pulley bone is the absolute perfect piece of white meat. All meat, almost no bone and then you get to make a wish and pull it! Fried chicken perfection!

I'm sure it's technically called the wishbone. But it was the pulley bone out in the country!

Bea’s Restaurant near Chattanooga has the best fried chicken ever (yes, I’ll meet you at Sonic) and they only use pulley bone pieces.

That's funny...lol.

I cut up whole chickens all the time and I've never seen nor heard of this piece. That's all about to change. I end up with 9 pieces with the back being the last because my thigh cut only leaves one bone in it.

My mom’s mom cut a chicken up that way, so all of my uncles are nostalgic about it.

There’s a diner in Arkansas they all insist on going to because they cut it that way too.