In sheer numbers alone, chicken wings qualify as America's most popular food. Reporters John Kessler and Rosalind Bentley combed the city last month looking for the best of the best — from hot wings to barbecued and Chinese versions. Their favorites were at Da Bomb Wings and the Harlem Bar, both in Atlanta's Sweet Auburn neighborhood. Kessler, who didn't grow up eating chicken wings, and Bentley, who did, compared their reactions to this bone-picking assignment. (For their previous story, click here For their top wing picks, click here.)

• Rosalind Bentley's take on wings JOHN KESSLER ON FOOD AND MORE E-mail Kessler Related: • More on food and drink • Restaurant reviews and search More Kessler Start with basics at three Buford Highway eateries  Salted cod gives kids whiff of new world (and they like it)  Colorful pumpkins have multiple uses  An iffy food approach: There's a joke in here somewhere  In the end, a bit too much wing think going on  Nibble by nibble, great meal at fancy restaurant redefined  A little midcentury classic we'd hate to be without  Grandfather's old-world life remains a mystery

I have a bone to pick.

OK, three bones: the humerus, the ulna and the radius. The former is found inside the tasty tidbit called the drummie, while the latter two inhabit the flat. We won't go anywhere near the phalanges because we know there's no good meat on those.

Last month, as my colleague Rosalind Bentley and I circumnavigated the city in search of memorable chicken wings for an accessAtlanta cover story, we became intimately familiar with these three bones, and how they cling to and then release their pockets of meat.

At first I was a little squeamish about all this anatomy. I liked the drummies for their plump buttons of meat but considered the flats inferior. They needed too much work. They harbored unappetizing slick bits.

But if you eat a lot of chicken wings, you realize the flats have more flavor. You learn to pull the two bones apart and find that a methodical cleaning of these bones is, in fact, the joy of eating chicken wings.

Some restaurants serve little wings, called "crickets," that can turn dry and leathery in the wrong deep fryer. Yet the pleasure in eating cricket wings comes from the unavoidable bits of gristle clinging to the tips. There is little avoiding them, so you learn to chew the gristle for the strange thrill of their crunch.

Other restaurants pride themselves on jumbo wings, which offer delicious expanses of meat and golden skin mottled with flecks of soul-thrilling crunch. But then they can also hide caches of gushy fat and the kind of gristle you don't want to eat.

The best, best, best wings were plump, crisp and fatless, with soft meat and crunchy gristle. This was the total package.

I'm sorry if this column has taken a somewhat stomach-churning turn, but that is precisely its point. Chicken wings offer the kind of dining pleasure people would rather not think about.

As much as we love chicken wings — a billion flats and drummies will be consumed over Super Bowl weekend — we don't discuss bone food.

When I was growing up, my mom used to buy a shrink-wrapped package of whole, cut-up chickens. We liked the breasts and the drumsticks, as the bones were easy enough to avoid. Losers had to settle for thighs. The wings went uneaten and the backbone never even made it into a cooking vessel.

Soon enough, the store began stocking something called "pick of the chix" that consisted of one split breast, two drumsticks and two thighs. Guess we weren't the only family who avoided bones.

Our bone-free dining table extended to all the other fauna. Fish was filleted, beef came in a boneless roast and pork in a can with a Danish flag on it.

I didn't learn the joy of bone gnawing until I moved to the South and experienced a baptism by barbecue. The pleasure of an ideal barbecued rib — one that requires a little but not too much tugging — makes my Top 10 list of great moments in face stuffing.

Do chicken wings as well? No, but that's because the words aren't there to describe what happens between you and your wing. A great wing moment — one of bumps, crevices, edges breaking free — gets a little too close to animal urge.