Chickens happen to be employed for food for hundreds of years, but it really wasn't until World War II so it became a staple of the American diet. Look in old cookbooks, and there are several recipes for chicken, but a majority of turn out for fried chicken or broiling. Three things contributed towards the chicken passing beef and veal as America's favorite meat: a beef and pork shortage in Wwii, the supply of chicken pieces (as opposed to whole chickens), and the Mad Cow epidemic from the mid-1990s.
Regardless of the reasons, chicken is currently...
