Officially, the brown thrasher is the state bird. Eugene Talmadge declared it so in 1935. The Georgia legislature succumbed to the demands of the Garden Clubs of Georgia and recognized the thrasher as the state’s official bird in 1970. Unofficially, the state bird has to be the chicken. No one says Georgia is the “brown thrasher capital of the world.” Poultry capital of the world has a nice ring to it though.
Over the weekend, the Taste of Atlanta – now a year-round brand promoting the best of metro Atlanta’s culinary culture – hosted the Southern Wing Showdown. Springer Mountain Farms was the title sponsor and the event featured 15 chefs from Atlanta and 15 chefs from around the Southeast, making for a wing lover’s dream Sunday afternoon.
Springer Mountain Farms is one of Georgia’s best known biddy brands. Springer Mountain is a family owned business that has been operating in blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Mount Airy in northeast Georgia for 40 years. Their chickens are 100% natural with no antibiotics, no steroids, no growth stimulants or hormones and are fed a vegetarian diet of American-grown, pesticide-free grains. In 2001, it became the world’s first poultry producer to be awarded the American Human Certified label. Their chickens are also afforded living conditions that never include cages or outdoors. They are raised inside comfortable houses with an unlimited supply of clean water, fresh air and plenty of room. The thinking goes that a healthy, stress-free chicken – besides being morally correct – makes for a tastier bird.
Those tasty birds were on parade on Sunday. There were a range of tastes available: from the clearly poultry-friendly Chicken+Beer (famed Atlanta rapper Ludacris’ restaurant located at Hartsfield-Jackson airport) to the Indian-Punjabi cuisine of Bhojanic to the now-giant chain but Atlanta-begun Taco Mac, who despite the name, still features a winged buffalo on their logo.
Besides featuring an array of restaurants, there was an actual competition at the event. Canoe was the winner for “Best Wing.” Long an Atlanta staple for fine dining, the Chattahoochee adjacent restaurant isn’t necessarily what one would normally think of when considering Atlanta’s best chicken wing. If you can pry yourself away from the New York strip or Alaskan halibut, the jerked thigh chicken is apparently probably worth a try.
Besides Springer Mountain, Big Green Egg – another Atlanta-based company big on the wing scene – was the other featured sponsor. Starting out in Atlanta in 1974, seven sizes of Egg are now available in more than 50 countries, with hundreds of accessories available. Besides chicken, the eggs can cook, well, basically anything you can think of. Of course burgers but also pizza and even, if Chuck Oliver from 680 the Fan is to be believed, pies.
The event also supported two charities. Angel Flight Soars helps families by arranging free non-emergency flights to medical treatment. Volunteer pilots take off from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport and get patients to lifesaving medical treatment – 9 flights a day, every day of the year. Second Helpings Atlanta “rescues” surplus food and delivers it to those in need. There are 59 food donors and 31 agencies that feed the hungry every day. Since 2004, the group has collected and distributed some 5 million pounds of food.
Now go get some wings…
