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Juicy: The Fried Chicken Story · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
0:04
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
0:13
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, in spirit, and
0:16
Speaker 1: that makes this Stuff you Should Know Chuck's Favorite Food edition. Yeah,
0:24
Speaker 1: my favorite food this is I don't blame you, Chuck,
0:27
Speaker 1: like I love fried chicken, but I love it even
0:29
Speaker 1: more after researching this, I've just got this whole must
0:32
Speaker 1: have attitude. And I think that that brings up an
0:36
Speaker 1: important point that we should lead with, which is, if
0:38
Speaker 1: you are vegan, you should probably skip this episode because
0:41
Speaker 1: you're not going to be vegan by the end of it.
0:43
Speaker 1: I'll tell you that much. Yeah. You know, people ask
0:47
Speaker 1: the favorite food question. You get that a lot in
0:49
Speaker 1: your life, and I guess I sort of went back
0:52
Speaker 1: and forth over the years with different things. But it's
0:55
Speaker 1: fried chicken. It is fried chicken. Okay, Well, then are
0:59
Speaker 1: you are I'm guessing something of an expert for Atlanta
1:02
Speaker 1: fried chicken, best fried chicken in Atlanta. Oh man, Sorry
1:08
Speaker 1: to put you on the spot. Do you want to
1:09
Speaker 1: come back to it at the end of the episode. Well, no,
1:11
Speaker 1: I was afraid you would ask me, what, like, what
1:13
Speaker 1: my favorite of all time? Was there something? Um, that's
1:17
Speaker 1: really hard because because there's so many kind of small variations,
1:21
Speaker 1: and I love fried chicken so much. I love so
1:24
Speaker 1: many different kinds that I don't know that I could
1:28
Speaker 1: say that I've ever had it, like put down my
1:30
Speaker 1: fork and me like, are my fingers really and said,
1:33
Speaker 1: this is hands down, like the best fried chicken I've
1:35
Speaker 1: ever had. I've said this is some of the best
1:38
Speaker 1: fried chicken I've ever had a lot, but I will
1:40
Speaker 1: say this, and it is a little controversial if you
1:42
Speaker 1: live in the South to take a grocery store allegiance
1:46
Speaker 1: like this. But Publix is known for their fried chicken.
1:51
Speaker 1: I don't like it. I like I like Croger's fried
1:53
Speaker 1: chicken better, much better. I've never had Kroger's fried chicken.
1:57
Speaker 1: But I don't like public Is fried chicken either. It's
2:00
Speaker 1: not good. It's too bready for me. And I don't
2:02
Speaker 1: know if it's my local Publics, but it always tastes
2:06
Speaker 1: like it's like the oil is old acrid. Yeah, man,
2:10
Speaker 1: it's just doesn't do it. I love Kroger's fried chicken.
2:14
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of minimal breading. Let that chicken
2:19
Speaker 1: skin shine and uh, sort of a dry fry is
2:23
Speaker 1: more my my jam. I have had the experience of
2:28
Speaker 1: putting my fork down, actually my fingers down and saying
2:33
Speaker 1: like that was the best fried chicken I've ever had.
2:36
Speaker 1: It was, um remember that that restaurant indicator Watershed. Oh sure.
2:41
Speaker 1: So the head chef was Scott Peacock and he and
2:46
Speaker 1: his mentor Edna Lewis came up with this fried chicken
2:50
Speaker 1: recipe that they used to serve it at Watershed. It
2:54
Speaker 1: was I mean, I've never had anything even approaching it,
2:57
Speaker 1: and I've had really good fried chicken too, I would
2:59
Speaker 1: say second probably Colonnade over on chester Bridge really good,
3:04
Speaker 1: but this was it was just an entirely different level.
3:07
Speaker 1: And you can find the recipe online really easily, and
3:10
Speaker 1: it's pretty, it's pretty hashtag basic, but something about it
3:15
Speaker 1: all comes together and makes it just just astoundingly good.
3:19
Speaker 1: It's so good. Yeah, it's just so good, Chuck. I
3:22
Speaker 1: think Emily Sailors from Indigo Girls was co owner or
3:28
Speaker 1: owner of Watershed for a while, may still be. I
3:31
Speaker 1: don't know, No, she sold it, okay, I think yeah,
3:34
Speaker 1: And they moved and Scott Peacock moved on and everything
3:36
Speaker 1: it was it was like the Beatles for a second.
3:38
Speaker 1: I am also going to carry out this and shout
3:40
Speaker 1: out my grandmother Bryant Opeal. Bryant's fright chicken was really
3:44
Speaker 1: my favorite. I haven't had it, you know. She died
3:47
Speaker 1: at the age of a hundred and one, uh, about
3:52
Speaker 1: eight years ago, but she hadn't been cooking for a
3:55
Speaker 1: while either, So it's been since I was probably in
3:59
Speaker 1: my twenties since I had opals uh, and hers was
4:03
Speaker 1: And I'm a big fan of this preparation, not deep
4:05
Speaker 1: fried or pressure fried, but skillet fried, which is when
4:10
Speaker 1: you have a cast iron skillet and you're you know,
4:13
Speaker 1: you're flipping the chicken. You're letting it fry and flipping
4:16
Speaker 1: the chicken because it's not completely covered in oil. And
4:20
Speaker 1: she also used just whatever grease was in the big
4:24
Speaker 1: jar on her stovetop. She would just throw all the
4:28
Speaker 1: grease in there from everything she ever cooked, and it
4:31
Speaker 1: would harden or you know, uh, congeal into this lardie
4:36
Speaker 1: jar of goodness. So she would just kind of just
4:38
Speaker 1: slop whatever that was. Um, so it's probably some bacon
4:41
Speaker 1: grease in there, not probably most definitely country ham stuff.
4:45
Speaker 1: That was all kinds of of meaty congealed fat in there.
4:50
Speaker 1: Yeah it sounds good. Her stuff was so good. So um. Yeah,
4:55
Speaker 1: So we're talking fried chicken. We could just keep doing
4:58
Speaker 1: this if you want. I know, we should start food
5:00
Speaker 1: show maybe when we eventually retire. If we start a
5:03
Speaker 1: food show, we're naming it Opal Bryant's Fried Chicken, Okay, okay,
5:08
Speaker 1: or if we ever open a restaurant, that will be
5:11
Speaker 1: the name. So yeah, we'll do a food show sometime sometime.
5:15
Speaker 1: This will be one of those things where we can
5:17
Speaker 1: be like and our fried chicken episode that we did
5:19
Speaker 1: years back was really good too. This is gonna be
5:22
Speaker 1: like that kind of episode. So we're talking fried chicken,
5:25
Speaker 1: and it's one of those things where everyone associates the
5:28
Speaker 1: dish with the American South, and for good reason, that's
5:31
Speaker 1: kind of where it it caught its um. It was
5:35
Speaker 1: established in the way that we understand it today, which
5:38
Speaker 1: is from what I can tell bone in chicken pieces,
5:41
Speaker 1: breaded and fried in oil, and that is fried chicken.
5:47
Speaker 1: That's American Southern American fried chicken. That's what purists will
5:50
Speaker 1: tell you. Anything different is is not technically fried chicken.
5:54
Speaker 1: But the American South is kind of where it got
5:56
Speaker 1: its start, but it dates back even further further than that,
6:00
Speaker 1: and even weirder, it seems like it might have come
6:04
Speaker 1: from a specific place in Europe originally too. Yeah, Scotland,
6:10
Speaker 1: if you can believe that there are appearances, I mean,
6:13
Speaker 1: people would be being people have been eating chickens for
6:16
Speaker 1: a long time. Uh. You can find recipes in books
6:20
Speaker 1: from the eighteenth century for fried chicken. Uh. Those one
6:23
Speaker 1: in seventeen thirty six. There was one in seventeen forty
6:27
Speaker 1: seven where it's you know, clearly dipped in flour, fried
6:31
Speaker 1: in some kind of lard. But it seemed like the
6:33
Speaker 1: Scots are the ones who started frying it. And I
6:37
Speaker 1: looked up this up in a lot of places and
6:38
Speaker 1: kind of saw the same thing. Uh. You know, the
6:40
Speaker 1: Brits didn't really care that much about eating things that
6:43
Speaker 1: tasted good, so they would boil or bake their chicken.
6:47
Speaker 1: That baked chicken could be good, but boiled chicken can
6:49
Speaker 1: never be good. Uh. And the Scots said, no, we'll
6:54
Speaker 1: flay it, and so they started frying it up in lard.
6:59
Speaker 1: And we're really onto something, as it turned out. Yeah,
7:03
Speaker 1: And the reason why at least one food is Storian is.
7:06
Speaker 1: This is their theory. But the reason why it kind
7:08
Speaker 1: of has legs is that a lot of the Scots
7:11
Speaker 1: and Scott's Irish um colonists who came to the United States, um,
7:19
Speaker 1: they owned slaves, enslaved people, and they think that the
7:24
Speaker 1: Scots taught their slaves to cook this for them, and
7:29
Speaker 1: that's where the origination of um black American Southerners having
7:35
Speaker 1: this um like being the kind of the place where
7:38
Speaker 1: fried chicken originated. That's where they think that it probably
7:41
Speaker 1: came from Scotland. Yeah, And I mean, I think what
7:44
Speaker 1: we can say for sure is that's where it was perfected.
7:48
Speaker 1: Were these enslaved women, Uh they spiced it in such
7:52
Speaker 1: a way because Scotland and in the UK, like, they're
7:55
Speaker 1: not known for their for their they're doing much better now,
8:00
Speaker 1: but they weren't known for the most flavorful um spiced food.
8:04
Speaker 1: So it was even though they were frying chicken, it
8:06
Speaker 1: was it was known as a little more bland until
8:09
Speaker 1: they got to the American South and these women started
8:12
Speaker 1: spicing it right, and that's where it became this this
8:15
Speaker 1: really really scrumptious and delicious food that we know today
8:20
Speaker 1: brought over from Scotland, but perfected in the American South. Yeah,
8:24
Speaker 1: I think the theory, the other theory that was, you know,
8:26
Speaker 1: long held is that it was brought over by um
8:30
Speaker 1: West African slaves to America. Um, but I think people
8:35
Speaker 1: have done investigations around West Africa and there isn't a
8:37
Speaker 1: fried chicken dish that. Um. They would fry their chicken
8:40
Speaker 1: lightly over there, but then they would braise it for
8:43
Speaker 1: the rest of the time. And I think the Brits
8:45
Speaker 1: would do that too. Um, you know, it isn't the same,
8:48
Speaker 1: so they actually do think it kind of came from Scotland,
8:51
Speaker 1: but yes, perfected by um enslaved cook women in the
8:55
Speaker 1: American South. And there's mentions of it too, I think,
8:58
Speaker 1: dating back to the seventeenth cent so it is an
9:01
Speaker 1: all American dish for sure. Yeah, it was. Um, it
9:04
Speaker 1: was a dish that was a little more of a
9:06
Speaker 1: treat at the time, at least preceding the Civil War. Uh.
9:09
Speaker 1: It was very labor intensive to get these chickens and
9:13
Speaker 1: to pluck the chickens and prepare them and cut them up.
9:16
Speaker 1: And it wasn't like just like throwing a whole plucked
9:18
Speaker 1: chicken into a pot kind of thing. Uh. There was
9:21
Speaker 1: no air conditioning obviously, so like you know, laboring over
9:24
Speaker 1: a hot stove all day in hot grease. It was
9:27
Speaker 1: just a lot to undertake. So it was a little
9:29
Speaker 1: more of a of a fancy meal to have, um,
9:32
Speaker 1: like on the fourth of July maybe or a big
9:35
Speaker 1: like birthday celebration. And even though uh, these women, these
9:40
Speaker 1: enslaved women were perfecting this dish, Uh, they their family
9:44
Speaker 1: wasn't really allowed to eat it that much until they
9:48
Speaker 1: were able to raise their own chickens. Um. There were
9:51
Speaker 1: laws or I don't know about laws per se, but
9:55
Speaker 1: um and slay people weren't allowed to own cattle. They
9:57
Speaker 1: weren't allowed to own pigs, but chickens were sort of
10:00
Speaker 1: seen as not very significant enough to restrict at the time.
10:05
Speaker 1: So they let enslave people you know, own and raise chickens. Uh,
10:08
Speaker 1: some of which they would actually at the plantation buy
10:11
Speaker 1: from them to eat. Yeah. I think Monicello bought um
10:15
Speaker 1: their chickens from their enslaved people working there. Yeah, I
10:19
Speaker 1: think you're right. So, um, there was a up shot,
10:22
Speaker 1: or there was an upside of the black women that
10:26
Speaker 1: were cooking this under duress at the time, who learned
10:30
Speaker 1: to perfect this dish. Was that after um emancipation, when
10:36
Speaker 1: the Jim Crow South started, they were a lot of
10:39
Speaker 1: them were able to support themselves by selling fried chicken
10:43
Speaker 1: because they were the only ones who knew how to
10:45
Speaker 1: make it correctly. And so there were there There was
10:48
Speaker 1: a UM, a woman, American studies scholar named Psyche Williams Forsen,
10:54
Speaker 1: who wrote a book basically so this chicken made this
10:57
Speaker 1: house or this house was made by chicken. Yeah, was
11:00
Speaker 1: called Building Houses out of Chicken Legs. Col Black Women,
11:04
Speaker 1: Food and Power. Uh. And I do want to shout
11:07
Speaker 1: her out too, because she has a new book out
11:08
Speaker 1: this year that looks great. It seems like she really
11:11
Speaker 1: explores um sort of the diaspora and how that affected
11:16
Speaker 1: foods that Black people ended up eating sort of around
11:20
Speaker 1: the world, especially in America. Uh. And there's a new
11:22
Speaker 1: one called Eating While Black, Food, Shaming and Race in
11:26
Speaker 1: America that just came out this year. And I saw
11:28
Speaker 1: a couple of interviews whetherr She's just it's amazing stuff
11:30
Speaker 1: that she's writing right on. So one of the things
11:34
Speaker 1: UM that she explored where these um women called waiter
11:38
Speaker 1: carriers who would show up along the tracks at railroad stops, um,
11:44
Speaker 1: you know, and this was a time like when railroads
11:47
Speaker 1: had really just kind of started up, and you couldn't
11:50
Speaker 1: really get food anywhere on these cars. Dining cars hadn't
11:53
Speaker 1: been invented yet. So these um, the these black women
11:56
Speaker 1: who were called waiter carriers would show up with pies
12:00
Speaker 1: or coffee or fresh picked berries or fried chicken and
12:04
Speaker 1: would sell them like hand them to the customers on
12:07
Speaker 1: the train through the windows. I think they sold chicken
12:09
Speaker 1: breasts for like twenty five cents apiece and other like
12:13
Speaker 1: like drumsticks and thighs for I think five cents apiece
12:16
Speaker 1: something like that. And there's a specific town called Gordonsville, Virginia,
12:21
Speaker 1: which became known as the chicken fried chicken capital of
12:24
Speaker 1: the world. And apparently some people would go out of
12:27
Speaker 1: their way to stop in Gordonsville, Virginia on their train
12:31
Speaker 1: journey so that they could buy the fried chicken there. Yeah,
12:34
Speaker 1: it was. It was a regional hub in Gordonsville at
12:38
Speaker 1: the time. And they still have a pretty robust fried
12:43
Speaker 1: chicken festival, I think in October. I think we missed
12:47
Speaker 1: it this year, but I saw them refer to themselves
12:50
Speaker 1: as the chicken leg Center of the Universe, which is
12:54
Speaker 1: another fun name. But we should also point out while
12:57
Speaker 1: this great sort of entrepreneurial spirit was being weren't after emancipation,
13:02
Speaker 1: a lot of these women were also harassed and robbed
13:05
Speaker 1: and things like that. So you know, they were they
13:07
Speaker 1: were doing the best they could to make a living,
13:09
Speaker 1: but it's still wasn't as above board as it should
13:12
Speaker 1: have been. Of course, got so um they were eventually, um,
13:17
Speaker 1: I guess outlawed by proxy after America started developing like
13:21
Speaker 1: food safety laws. They're like, you can't do that anymore.
13:24
Speaker 1: We're gonna start regulating vendors. And then also dining cars
13:27
Speaker 1: came along and that really kind of did that. That
13:30
Speaker 1: was the death and all of it. Forget this amazing
13:32
Speaker 1: fried chicken being handed to you through a window for
13:34
Speaker 1: a quarter. Come et in the dining car. We're featuring
13:38
Speaker 1: British boiled checking for dinner tonight. It's probably right. So, um,
13:43
Speaker 1: you said something about how these women were robbed and exploited,
13:46
Speaker 1: and you know, there's a there's a through line through
13:49
Speaker 1: a lot of American history where um, a lot of
13:52
Speaker 1: black culture um gets kind of taken over by white culture,
13:57
Speaker 1: and that the transfer is lost to history or erased
14:02
Speaker 1: or blurred, or people just ignore it. So fried chicken
14:05
Speaker 1: is actually one of those um things. Because if you ask,
14:08
Speaker 1: like a lot of Americans on the street who invented
14:10
Speaker 1: fried chicken, I would guess a significant portion of them
14:14
Speaker 1: are going to identify Colonel Sanders as the person who did.
14:17
Speaker 1: And he definitely did not. He wasn't even the first
14:20
Speaker 1: fried chicken restaurant tour, but he was part of a
14:24
Speaker 1: tradition where while he wasn't stealing directly from the labor
14:30
Speaker 1: the intellectual proper you could say, of um, black women. Um,
14:34
Speaker 1: he definitely benefited from it big time. There were people
14:37
Speaker 1: who were just directly exploiting it. And there was a
14:41
Speaker 1: restaurant chain in Salt Lake City that was open in
14:44
Speaker 1: ve chuck. Yeah, this is one of you know, sort
14:46
Speaker 1: of the shameful parts of our racism in America. This
14:51
Speaker 1: is in the nineteen twenties. Uh, And it was you know,
14:55
Speaker 1: it was just a time when you had like straight
14:57
Speaker 1: up racist iconography on mainstream restaurant chains. Uh. And that
15:03
Speaker 1: was the case with the coon Chicken in had racist
15:06
Speaker 1: character caricatures on the logo. And it was in birth
15:11
Speaker 1: of a nation. You know, it was like if it
15:13
Speaker 1: makes an appearance in Birth of a Nation, that's like
15:15
Speaker 1: the ultimate stamp of racism, of this sort of stereotype
15:20
Speaker 1: of what this you know, this great food that was
15:22
Speaker 1: invented by these enslaved people was then turned on them
15:27
Speaker 1: and used against them as sort of a stereotype of
15:31
Speaker 1: of whatever they wanted to say what they thought black
15:33
Speaker 1: people were at the time, right, which was basically the
15:37
Speaker 1: goal was to debase and demean black people so that
15:41
Speaker 1: they wouldn't enjoy full citizenship, either politically, legally or culturally.
15:46
Speaker 1: And it was we talked about it in our Watermelon
15:48
Speaker 1: episode because I mean, like everybody loved watermelons and everybody
15:52
Speaker 1: loved fried chicken, but the way that the white society
15:55
Speaker 1: would point to it to kind of degrade black society was, well,
15:59
Speaker 1: we all love it, but Black people really love it.
16:02
Speaker 1: They're really crazy for watermelon, they're really crazy for fried chicken.
16:05
Speaker 1: They'll do anything for it. And it just had this
16:08
Speaker 1: kind of um, this this this purpose in this goal
16:11
Speaker 1: and successfully of of demeaning, they making them seem less
16:15
Speaker 1: of that even stuff that everybody enjoyed, they enjoyed it differently.
16:19
Speaker 1: They were different. They were less somehow, and you know
16:22
Speaker 1: that was apparently the fried chicken thing in particular was
16:26
Speaker 1: was first sourced in Birth of a Nation. Alright, so
16:30
Speaker 1: let's take a break and uh, let's talk about some
16:33
Speaker 1: of the more fun parts of fried chicken. How about that? Okay?
16:39
Speaker 1: And things stuck? Stuck. I don't know that you know
16:54
Speaker 1: it stuck. And it's a great name. That's the name
16:59
Speaker 1: of It's great with an X. Alright, so fried chicken. Well,
17:08
Speaker 1: let's talk about chicken in general. Um, it wasn't really
17:11
Speaker 1: the on the menu of every American who eats meat
17:16
Speaker 1: like it is today. Chicken was was a distant third
17:19
Speaker 1: to pork and beef for most of our history. Actually, um,
17:24
Speaker 1: there's some stats here the National Chicken Council. It's pretty fun. Uh.
17:28
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty, Americans eight twenty eight pounds of chicken
17:32
Speaker 1: per capita, and just a few years ago, in twenty nineteen,
17:35
Speaker 1: that number was at ninety seven pounds, whereas red meat
17:39
Speaker 1: went from one three to one twelve. So you know,
17:42
Speaker 1: there there's been a big shift in um or a
17:45
Speaker 1: shift in the kinds of meats that Americans eat. Uh.
17:48
Speaker 1: And you know, chicken farming wasn't as big as beef
17:53
Speaker 1: and pig farming for a long long time. It's sort
17:56
Speaker 1: of a mom and pop thing, until they realized that
17:59
Speaker 1: people really loved chicken, and we can fortify them with antibiotics,
18:03
Speaker 1: and we can get those breasts unnaturally plump and get
18:07
Speaker 1: build these huge barns to raise them in, and basically like, hey,
18:11
Speaker 1: we can factory farm chickens just like we can cows
18:13
Speaker 1: and pigs. Yeah, So that that really boosted chicken consumption.
18:17
Speaker 1: And by the way, that nine pounds of chicken that
18:20
Speaker 1: Americans eight in two thousand nine, I think it equaled
18:24
Speaker 1: about eleven billion birds um. So the other thing that
18:29
Speaker 1: happened in addition to cheap, widely available chicken UM were
18:34
Speaker 1: new cooking techniques and the big cooking technique that really
18:38
Speaker 1: turned fried chicken from something that took like up to
18:42
Speaker 1: twenty minutes to cook correctly UM to something that you
18:45
Speaker 1: could sell as fast food where it was just using
18:48
Speaker 1: pressure cookers. So they would fry the chicken and a
18:50
Speaker 1: pressure cooker and still people still do it today, and
18:54
Speaker 1: the pressure would change, it would lower the boiling point
18:57
Speaker 1: of the oil, so the oil could get hotter and
19:00
Speaker 1: the chicken would cook faster. And if you did it right,
19:02
Speaker 1: if you bredded it right, if you use the right
19:04
Speaker 1: kind of breading, if you did you know, brine your
19:07
Speaker 1: chicken and all that first, then you could cook this
19:10
Speaker 1: stuff really fast and it would come out really good. Yeah.
19:13
Speaker 1: So now Colonel Sanders comes into the picture. Uh. You
19:17
Speaker 1: can't talk about fried chicken without talking about Harland Sanders. Uh.
19:21
Speaker 1: And he got a sort of a late start as
19:23
Speaker 1: far as his um chicken business goes. At the age
19:27
Speaker 1: of forty was when he started serving chicken in front
19:31
Speaker 1: of the service station he owned in Corbin, Kentucky. Then
19:34
Speaker 1: opened up a cafe, Sanders Cafe across the street, serving
19:37
Speaker 1: that skillet fried chicken that I love so much. And
19:40
Speaker 1: then uh nine, so I guess he was forty nine
19:44
Speaker 1: years old he finally develops this eleven secret eleven herbs
19:49
Speaker 1: and spice recipe cooking in the pressure cooker. Uh. The
19:53
Speaker 1: governor gave him his his his fake colonel ship. Uh
19:58
Speaker 1: he was he was not an army man. The current
20:00
Speaker 1: ship was bestowed upon him in an honorary fashion by
20:03
Speaker 1: the governor of Kentucky. And that's when he started dressing
20:08
Speaker 1: up like old Connell sandals and his white suit and
20:11
Speaker 1: his bolow tie and his little white goatee, and and
20:16
Speaker 1: a character was all of a sudden born. He became
20:18
Speaker 1: more than a man. I read a little bit about him.
20:20
Speaker 1: Apparently he had a he was known for two things,
20:22
Speaker 1: had a really really really really foul mouth, and was
20:28
Speaker 1: a bit handsy, shall we say. Yeah. They described him
20:33
Speaker 1: as a having a insatiable sexual appetite. And because it
20:38
Speaker 1: was you know, the nineteen thirties and forties, would kind
20:41
Speaker 1: of come into a room and just be like, hey, hey,
20:43
Speaker 1: who can I grab onto? Not kind of thing. Did
20:47
Speaker 1: not know that part? Yeah, that was? That was That's
20:50
Speaker 1: the legend. I have a Colonel Sanders story. Let's hear it.
20:56
Speaker 1: I was driving down the road one day south Troy, Atlanta,
21:01
Speaker 1: and I um was driving alongside a Buick and the
21:04
Speaker 1: buick had a Vanity license plate which ties into our
21:08
Speaker 1: license plate episode, by the way, and it said KFC
21:11
Speaker 1: C O L. And in the back uh the I
21:15
Speaker 1: don't I never know what that thing is called. But
21:17
Speaker 1: the back panel behind the back seat, between that and
21:20
Speaker 1: the window whatever that like the rear dashboard, I guess
21:23
Speaker 1: there was a Colonel Sanders bobble head and they pulled
21:26
Speaker 1: up closer and closer to the driver. I realized I
21:29
Speaker 1: was looking at the man who played Colonel Sanders throughout
21:33
Speaker 1: the eighties and nineties, and he, I swear to God,
21:36
Speaker 1: was wearing a white suit and a black string tie
21:39
Speaker 1: and he was driving down the road in the twenty
21:41
Speaker 1: one century in America. Yeah, I think it said Bolo
21:44
Speaker 1: ties that string tie. It's a little different. Okay, that's enough.
21:48
Speaker 1: But he was the t D actor. Yes, he was
21:51
Speaker 1: the the Yeah, Colonel Sanders was long dead by this time.
21:54
Speaker 1: This is the guy who played Colonel Sanders in all
21:56
Speaker 1: the ads for decades of I mean, I guess it
21:59
Speaker 1: was him, like, you know, run him off the road
22:02
Speaker 1: and interview him. But this is there's just no way
22:04
Speaker 1: it wasn't him. It was him. I could tell you
22:06
Speaker 1: by looking at him, and then you know the other
22:09
Speaker 1: kind of evidence. The vanity plaint in the bottle really
22:13
Speaker 1: kind of teared it for me. Uh My one favorite
22:16
Speaker 1: thing that they've done recently in the past few years
22:19
Speaker 1: is when they started casting all the different people to
22:21
Speaker 1: play Colonel Sanders. Oh that was great, wasn't Amy Sadie? She?
22:27
Speaker 1: I think she was. I know, I didn't see them all,
22:30
Speaker 1: but I thought that was a pretty pretty clever little twist. So,
22:33
Speaker 1: by the way, speaking of Amy Sadaris, this is gonna
22:35
Speaker 1: come out long after this, but do you know um
22:38
Speaker 1: Leslie Jordan's. Yeah, he just passed away yesterday. I'm super
22:42
Speaker 1: super gutted about this. Yeah, he was like just this
22:45
Speaker 1: great guy. If you knew him on Instagram, he was
22:48
Speaker 1: really fun and funny and all that. But like favorite
22:50
Speaker 1: Instagram accounts, some of the um some of the like
22:53
Speaker 1: interviews that I'm seeing of him now, and one of
22:55
Speaker 1: them was posted by Amy Sadaris where he's talking about
22:57
Speaker 1: how like he wanted to live a life of serve
23:00
Speaker 1: because you know, taking care of other people like brings
23:02
Speaker 1: you out of yourself. And he was just this great guy.
23:06
Speaker 1: Um And if you if you aren't familiar with him,
23:08
Speaker 1: go look up his Instagram account. And I didn't realize
23:11
Speaker 1: it at the time, but now I do that the
23:13
Speaker 1: world like really lost somebody special. So r I p
23:17
Speaker 1: um Leslie Jordan's. Yeah. I had seen him on like
23:20
Speaker 1: Will and Grace and other stuff like that, but his
23:23
Speaker 1: his Instagram account is where I just fell in love
23:25
Speaker 1: with the guy. Yeah, for sure, Hey, hunker downers. He was.
23:28
Speaker 1: He was great and I was very very sad to
23:30
Speaker 1: learn about that because I was just like I was
23:32
Speaker 1: watching him on Instagram like the day before, like hanging
23:36
Speaker 1: putin thing. Dave Hill, Well I saw that too, and uh.
23:40
Speaker 1: The other tribute is very good to read is making
23:42
Speaker 1: milayles Is. She's doesn't post on the Instagram much, but
23:45
Speaker 1: hers was very very sweet and sad. Yeah, alright, back
23:50
Speaker 1: to the colonel. Yeah, sure. He sold the brand in
23:55
Speaker 1: nine four for imagine a boatload of money, and it's
24:00
Speaker 1: a part of Young Brands, one of those humongous, uh
24:04
Speaker 1: nebulous sort of food corporations that owns lots of fast
24:08
Speaker 1: food restaurants. And it went from Kentucky Fried Chicken officially
24:13
Speaker 1: to KFC and apparently because the state of Kentucky said,
24:17
Speaker 1: you know that there's a lot of brands using our name,
24:20
Speaker 1: why don't we trademark the name Kentucky so we can
24:22
Speaker 1: make a little money off this, And so KFC said,
24:25
Speaker 1: we'll just go by KFC then yep, so um, which
24:29
Speaker 1: is hilarious that Kentucky did that. I wonder how much
24:33
Speaker 1: money they made from it. I don't know, or I
24:34
Speaker 1: wonder if all the brands just he said, all right,
24:37
Speaker 1: we're just k whatever. Right. It really harmed though, Kentucky
24:41
Speaker 1: black Powder must get ink, I think the hardest at
24:47
Speaker 1: any rate. Um, the I saw that when Colonel Sanders
24:51
Speaker 1: sold Kentucky Fried Chicken in sixty four, he immediately started
24:55
Speaker 1: trash talking it to open his own restaurant. They moved
24:59
Speaker 1: to block and from doing that, he sued them for
25:01
Speaker 1: like a hundred million dollars. They gave him like a
25:04
Speaker 1: million dollars and let him open the restaurant in exchange
25:06
Speaker 1: for him to stop talking trash about KFC from that
25:09
Speaker 1: point on. Yeah, he was quite a character. And also
25:12
Speaker 1: I mean like the fact that he was considered a
25:15
Speaker 1: possible running mate for George Wallace, the pro segregationist presidential candidate.
25:21
Speaker 1: The fact that he was kind of like, you know,
25:23
Speaker 1: a throwback to the Annabellum South with his ties and
25:26
Speaker 1: his accent and all that. A lot of people just
25:28
Speaker 1: presume he was racist. Um. And when Papa John's um
25:33
Speaker 1: had that scandal where Papa John himself like used that
25:36
Speaker 1: racial slur um, he he tried to say, like Colonel
25:41
Speaker 1: Sanders used to say that who cares? And apparently Colonel
25:44
Speaker 1: Sanders family came out swinging and we're like. They called
25:48
Speaker 1: Papa John a weasel and basically a scumbag and said
25:52
Speaker 1: like our grandfather, a great grandfather or whoever, like who
25:55
Speaker 1: did not use racial slurs. He attended black church sometimes
25:59
Speaker 1: like he was not He was many things, but he
26:02
Speaker 1: was not a racist. So you shut your mouth, Papa John,
26:05
Speaker 1: and Uh, I guess it worked. Uh. Popeyes came along
26:08
Speaker 1: to rival KFC is probably yeah, we're talking about friends
26:11
Speaker 1: kids arrival. Uh. Popeyes was founded in s Popeyes without
26:16
Speaker 1: an apostrophe. By the way, the joke was from founder
26:19
Speaker 1: Alvin Copeland, Sr. That he was so poor he couldn't
26:22
Speaker 1: afford the apostrophe, which is a great joke. But that
26:25
Speaker 1: was a Louisiana chain opened in nineteen seventy two as
26:29
Speaker 1: Chicken on the Run. Uh, people were like him. It
26:32
Speaker 1: was really not so great, so he spiced it up
26:35
Speaker 1: a little bit and went to a more New Orleans
26:36
Speaker 1: style chicken and changed to Popeye is named after the
26:41
Speaker 1: cartoon character No named after Popeye Doyle Gene Hackman's character
26:47
Speaker 1: in the French Connection. Fact of the podcast. That's the
26:50
Speaker 1: weirdest fact I could ever imagine. I mean that is
26:54
Speaker 1: a that is a trivia question right there for sure.
26:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because you're setting people up because everyone's gonna
26:59
Speaker 1: say it's Popeyes because they're now using him as the
27:03
Speaker 1: logo like Popeye, that Gene Hackman and this little But
27:07
Speaker 1: you'd have to word it just so because you'd spook
27:09
Speaker 1: some people and be like, that's too easy a question.
27:12
Speaker 1: It's really here. You'd have to word it just right. So.
27:16
Speaker 1: But yeah, Copeland was He was a character as well. Um.
27:19
Speaker 1: I didn't read that he was handy or anything like that. Um,
27:22
Speaker 1: he raced speedboats. Uh, he loved spending money. He was
27:25
Speaker 1: a propertly get spender and he was not at all
27:28
Speaker 1: ashamed or embarrassed about it. Um. And one of the
27:30
Speaker 1: things he was well known for in New Orleans was
27:33
Speaker 1: his Christmas displays outside his home and they were so
27:36
Speaker 1: elaborate they drew so many people that like like sheriff's
27:39
Speaker 1: deputies had to direct traffic in the area around it
27:42
Speaker 1: because people would just park and stop and go look
27:45
Speaker 1: at him. So he was that kind of guy. And
27:47
Speaker 1: I mean there's a special place in the universe for
27:50
Speaker 1: people who spend, you know, freely on Christmas decorations. Outside
27:55
Speaker 1: of their house so much so that it attracts like
27:58
Speaker 1: local townsfolk who come in, like get the Christmas spirit
28:01
Speaker 1: from that kind of thing. I think those are special
28:04
Speaker 1: kind of people, agreed, I love it. Popeye's was eventually
28:07
Speaker 1: bought out again by one of these conglomerates called Restaurant
28:12
Speaker 1: Brands International. Really great creative name there. Uh. And you
28:17
Speaker 1: know there are KFCs all over the world. Um, there
28:20
Speaker 1: are KFC knockoffs all over the world. The SFC in Iran,
28:26
Speaker 1: Superstar Fried Chicken and PFC Perfect Fried Chicken in London,
28:31
Speaker 1: which I looked up to see how closely they were
28:33
Speaker 1: ripping them off. And the PFC the font is definitely
28:37
Speaker 1: the same font, but the logos and stuff look different. Okay,
28:42
Speaker 1: Colonel Sanders has like blonde hair right. Speaking speaking of
28:47
Speaker 1: Colonel sanders appearance, apparently KFC's most profitable nation is um China. Big. Yes,
28:55
Speaker 1: the people in China since have gone berserk for Kentucky
28:59
Speaker 1: Fried Chicken. Um. Again, it's more profitable in China than
29:03
Speaker 1: in the US. Um the offerings are a little bit different. Um, Like,
29:08
Speaker 1: there is fried chicken, but it's not the most popular
29:10
Speaker 1: menu item they have. You know, like regional dishes as well,
29:14
Speaker 1: and I think those are a little more popular. But
29:16
Speaker 1: one of the reasons um I saw floated for why
29:19
Speaker 1: uh Kentucky Fried Chickens so popular in China is that
29:23
Speaker 1: Colonel Sanders vaguely resembles Confucious and that there's like an
29:27
Speaker 1: affinity for him there. Oh wow, um it is double Uh.
29:32
Speaker 1: It's the biggest most popular fast food in China, double
29:35
Speaker 1: the size of McDonald's as far as a number of stores.
29:39
Speaker 1: And I think when they were first built in the eighties,
29:41
Speaker 1: it was a little bit of a luxurious thing where um,
29:45
Speaker 1: there was more room, the restaurants were really clean, and
29:49
Speaker 1: it was sort of contrasted with like street vendor food
29:52
Speaker 1: as a place where you can go and take your
29:53
Speaker 1: family that's a little nicer. Uh. And I did look
29:56
Speaker 1: up the menu items. You know, they sell kanji and
29:59
Speaker 1: egg tar. Uh. There's something called a dragon twister, which
30:03
Speaker 1: I really there's there's a cool article where this food
30:05
Speaker 1: writer went there and ate a bunch of stuff and
30:07
Speaker 1: wrote about it. But the dragon twister sort of looks like, uh,
30:11
Speaker 1: you know, when they'll take peeking duck and wrap it
30:13
Speaker 1: in like a thin pancake, almost like a roll with
30:17
Speaker 1: cucumber and spring onion and stuff. That's what the Dragon
30:20
Speaker 1: Twister is, except it's, um, it looks like a like
30:23
Speaker 1: a chicken uh not finger, Yeah, like a chicken finger. Right,
30:27
Speaker 1: it's a chicken finger wrapped in a chicken breast, That's
30:30
Speaker 1: what I'm guessing. No, it's that thin pancake, but it
30:34
Speaker 1: does have the sweet bean sauce and cucumber and spring onion.
30:37
Speaker 1: Look looks realiant I want one of those. If we
30:40
Speaker 1: have any listeners in China, please mail us at right,
30:43
Speaker 1: just drop ship it. And then also in Japan, KFC
30:46
Speaker 1: is huge, not as huge as it is in China,
30:48
Speaker 1: but it's become a national um Christmas tradition. Chaos the
30:54
Speaker 1: traditional Christmas dinner in Japan. Not I think you told
30:57
Speaker 1: me that before. I love that. Yeah, I think it
30:59
Speaker 1: was in a Christmas episode once. Yeah, that's good stuff.
31:03
Speaker 1: And then Korea, I believe they do not have well
31:06
Speaker 1: they do have KFC, but they took the KFC methods
31:11
Speaker 1: and turned it into something else, which is Korean fried chicken,
31:14
Speaker 1: which apparently, um, if you if you like fried chicken,
31:19
Speaker 1: you're going to like Korean fried chicken. And there's there's
31:21
Speaker 1: no reason you have to choose. You can like them
31:23
Speaker 1: both because they're so wildly different that there's no reason
31:26
Speaker 1: to choose. Just just love it all. Yeah, I mean
31:29
Speaker 1: they're not that different. It's it's it's still crunchy fried chicken,
31:32
Speaker 1: but in Korea they double fry it. Uh, So they
31:36
Speaker 1: fry it, well, they fry it once and then they
31:38
Speaker 1: fry it again, so it's gonna be once, not twice,
31:41
Speaker 1: but it's gonna be extra crunchy. Uh. And then they
31:44
Speaker 1: have a you know, they're known for this sticky spicy
31:46
Speaker 1: glaze that's on it. So like, Korean sticky fried chicken
31:51
Speaker 1: is really really great. I love it. It's one of
31:54
Speaker 1: my favorite preparations. Uh. A lot of people think that
31:57
Speaker 1: when American troops were stationed there after the into the
32:00
Speaker 1: Korean War, they may have introduced locals there and then
32:04
Speaker 1: they built on that on their own to to sort
32:06
Speaker 1: of make it their own. Which actually that might be true,
32:09
Speaker 1: because apparently prior to American occupation, they would steam their chicken.
32:13
Speaker 1: That's how they prepared it typically. Oh really, which is
32:17
Speaker 1: the opposite of crunchy. It really is boiled. Yeah, I
32:22
Speaker 1: don't know. I was wondering that too. Um, because I
32:24
Speaker 1: knew the steam part was coming back when we were
32:26
Speaker 1: talking about boiled chicken, and I wondered which is worse.
32:28
Speaker 1: I think boiled is still worse. Yeah, And like when
32:31
Speaker 1: your dog has an upset tummy, you give them boiled chicken. Oh,
32:35
Speaker 1: I hadn't thought about that. White ricking can be good
32:38
Speaker 1: if you're making like chicken salad. Yeah, all right, yeah,
32:42
Speaker 1: I just forgot. I forgot about that. I was just
32:44
Speaker 1: thinking of like throwing like whole chicken breasts and bones
32:47
Speaker 1: and everything in a pot and boiling it. Well, that
32:50
Speaker 1: sounds awful. Yeah, I mean, none of it is very
32:53
Speaker 1: appealing to me. After you've had fried chicken, that crispy
32:56
Speaker 1: brown goodness. Uh. That Korea is so good at they.
33:00
Speaker 1: I think in the ninety seven Asian financial crisis, a
33:05
Speaker 1: lot of people went into business for themselves, opened up
33:08
Speaker 1: their own little mom and pops chicken, uh and a
33:12
Speaker 1: beer and fried chicken is a very famous combo in
33:14
Speaker 1: South Korea. Great combo and America too. Yeah. And I
33:20
Speaker 1: think now there was a study UM in two thousand
33:23
Speaker 1: nineteen that found there were eighties seven thousand fried chicken
33:26
Speaker 1: restaurants in South Korea and that's three and a half
33:30
Speaker 1: times the number of Kentucky fried chickens in the entire world.
33:34
Speaker 1: That's that. Yeah. South Koreans love their fried chicken. But
33:37
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that, um another survey found that they
33:42
Speaker 1: don't actually consider it to be a Korean dish, even
33:45
Speaker 1: though they put such a spin on it that everyone
33:47
Speaker 1: outside of the world considers that particular kind of fried
33:50
Speaker 1: chicken Korean fried chicken. Apparently in Korea, they South Korea
33:53
Speaker 1: should say they don't. They don't consider that. No word
33:55
Speaker 1: on what North Korea thinks about it. Uh. There there
34:00
Speaker 1: there are some chains from Korea that are open now
34:03
Speaker 1: in America, one of which I haven't tried yet, but
34:06
Speaker 1: there is one in Atlanta, just have to drive a bit.
34:09
Speaker 1: There's one called bon Chon where I think it's in Fayetteville,
34:13
Speaker 1: which is things south of Atlanta. Somebody didn't do their
34:17
Speaker 1: market research first. Uh. And then there's one called Mom's
34:21
Speaker 1: Touch Chicken, which is just now arriving in America. Uh.
34:27
Speaker 1: And I think we should take our last break now. Yeah. Yeah,
34:30
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about some more variations on fried chicken,
34:33
Speaker 1: because why not? And things stuck stuck. I don't know
34:50
Speaker 1: that you know it's stuck and stuck. It's a great name.
34:56
Speaker 1: That's the name of it. It's a great name. Alright,
34:59
Speaker 1: stuck snet with in with an x so chuck when
35:02
Speaker 1: we go to Nashville. Let's just go ahead and say it.
35:05
Speaker 1: There's a really good chance we're going to do a
35:07
Speaker 1: show in Nashville this year. I was just next Nashville
35:10
Speaker 1: last weekend. Oh yeah, did you go to Prince's Barbecue
35:15
Speaker 1: Chicken Check? No, I went to the Stevie Nicks concert,
35:18
Speaker 1: but uh had a great time, And I was like,
35:21
Speaker 1: Nashville just needs to be on my list because it's
35:23
Speaker 1: it's drivable and like, it's a fun weekend and they've
35:26
Speaker 1: got Hot Chicken. We have a year too, but they
35:29
Speaker 1: it originated there. Yeah, hot chickens everywhere now. But yeah,
35:32
Speaker 1: there is a guy named Thornton Prince the Third who
35:36
Speaker 1: opened uh, Prince's Barbecue Chicken Check. I think they call
35:41
Speaker 1: it Prince's Hot Chicken Check now, I believe. But essentially
35:45
Speaker 1: every version of Hot Chicken that is out everywhere, from
35:48
Speaker 1: KFC to Dave's Hot Chicken to all the little like
35:53
Speaker 1: Hot Chicken operations that are just going crazy, and for
35:55
Speaker 1: good reason. Hot chicken is really really good. Um it
35:58
Speaker 1: all starred it in Hadley Park neighborhood of Nashville thanks
36:03
Speaker 1: to Thornton Prince the Third. Yeah, I don't love hot chicken.
36:07
Speaker 1: Um Oh, I love it, man. It's so greasy, nasty,
36:10
Speaker 1: it's so good. It is. One reason is because I don't,
36:13
Speaker 1: like I'm developing more of a tolerance for good heat
36:17
Speaker 1: here in my fifties, because I've generally avoided heat. But
36:21
Speaker 1: it depends on the kind of heat. Cayenne heat, which
36:23
Speaker 1: is the heat that is generally made to for the
36:26
Speaker 1: hot chicken is is one that kind of burns me
36:29
Speaker 1: more than is satisfying to me. Uh and and and
36:32
Speaker 1: it's trust me. It's fried chicken. Is one of the
36:34
Speaker 1: reasons I am so out of shape. But hot chicken
36:39
Speaker 1: is even worse because like they dunk it in in
36:42
Speaker 1: hot oil after they fried it and just sort of
36:45
Speaker 1: shake it out, so it is doubly bad for you. Yeah.
36:50
Speaker 1: The thing about researching this chuck is I was like,
36:53
Speaker 1: there's so much good fried chicken to eat that if
36:56
Speaker 1: you just selective, if you're just choosy and you just
36:59
Speaker 1: go to someplace like Princes where you just go to
37:02
Speaker 1: like like the best Korean fried chicken place in your town. Um,
37:06
Speaker 1: or you just you know, build a time machine and
37:09
Speaker 1: go back and eat some of Opal Bryant's fried chicken.
37:12
Speaker 1: Like you're not going to be able to eat it
37:13
Speaker 1: all that often. It will become a delicacy, which I
37:16
Speaker 1: think it should be treated as because it is really
37:19
Speaker 1: really bad for you if it's done right, and then
37:22
Speaker 1: if it's if it's done in any kind of way
37:24
Speaker 1: that's approaching healthy, it's not being done right and it's
37:26
Speaker 1: probably not that good. So yeah, it's really bad for you.
37:30
Speaker 1: But I think if you just treat anything in moderation
37:33
Speaker 1: like that, you can you can have it and enjoy it.
37:35
Speaker 1: That's my problem. What moderation for fried chicken? I know
37:40
Speaker 1: it problem. I treated as a regular just like this
37:44
Speaker 1: is just what you eat. I was. I was raised
37:46
Speaker 1: on fried chicken. I love it so much, but I
37:49
Speaker 1: do I do need to in in theory, you would, uh,
37:53
Speaker 1: you would enjoy it more and be like, hey, I
37:54
Speaker 1: haven't had having my fried chicken for the month and
37:57
Speaker 1: I'm really savorite and enjoy it. You don't even have
38:00
Speaker 1: to do like that. You could just be like I
38:02
Speaker 1: I want fried chicken but instead of like hopping on
38:05
Speaker 1: over to Kroger and getting it at the drop of
38:06
Speaker 1: a hat, if you make it so you have to
38:08
Speaker 1: drive to like a really good place, they have it less. Probably.
38:12
Speaker 1: I don't know how this ended up. This episode ended
38:14
Speaker 1: up in me giving you health advice because I'm not
38:17
Speaker 1: really the person you should be listening to about that.
38:19
Speaker 1: But here we are. Uh, yeah, I know, it is
38:23
Speaker 1: what it is. I'm working on it. It is what
38:25
Speaker 1: it is. Man. Poio campero is something we had in Guatemala.
38:29
Speaker 1: Uh and now they have those in the United States.
38:31
Speaker 1: There's one of Buford Highway and that is fried chicken
38:34
Speaker 1: with an adobo rub, which is delicious. Yeah. By the way, Chuck,
38:38
Speaker 1: two things. I was such a dummy that when we
38:40
Speaker 1: went to Guatemala with co ED, I thought, oh, the
38:43
Speaker 1: American chain has infiltrated Guatemala. There's poyo compero here. I
38:47
Speaker 1: didn't realize the opposite had happened, because it's been it
38:51
Speaker 1: was around in Guatemala starting in nine. And then secondly,
38:55
Speaker 1: I will also want to direct people to our ongoing
38:58
Speaker 1: co ED pledge drive to get to a million um.
39:02
Speaker 1: You can go to co Operative for education dot org
39:04
Speaker 1: slash s y s K and donate. How about that.
39:07
Speaker 1: I love it. I just saw the opportunity and I
39:09
Speaker 1: jumped on I pounced on it. Yeah. Take that twelve
39:12
Speaker 1: bucks that you would get for your third fried chicken
39:14
Speaker 1: meal of the week. Yeah, chuck, and donate it to Coe.
39:20
Speaker 1: Can we talk about really? Wait? Wait, do you really
39:22
Speaker 1: eat fried chicken three times a week? Well? It depends
39:25
Speaker 1: on what you're talking you know, I want to live
39:28
Speaker 1: your life, man. I mean, if you're talking about just
39:30
Speaker 1: like you know, if your chicken fingers here and there,
39:33
Speaker 1: are you talking about like a full like fried chicken
39:37
Speaker 1: and fried chicken meal? Yeah, no, that's not three times
39:39
Speaker 1: a week, but shooting chicken fingers No, no, no, that's
39:43
Speaker 1: not the same thing. All right, yeah fried chicken is No,
39:47
Speaker 1: that's not the same thing. Yeah, it's the bone that
39:49
Speaker 1: makes it unhealthy, right exactly. Eureka. Uh, we should talk
39:56
Speaker 1: about chicken and waffles because that is a great food combination.
40:00
Speaker 1: When I lived in l. A. Roscoe's was a place
40:02
Speaker 1: that I would love to go and take people from
40:04
Speaker 1: out of town who hadn't had chicken and waffles. Yet
40:07
Speaker 1: it's become kind of a sort of a trendy brunch thing.
40:09
Speaker 1: But it's been around for longer than I thought. Right, Yeah,
40:13
Speaker 1: it's been around since at least the thirties, with Well
40:17
Speaker 1: Supper Club in Harlem introducing a lot of the world
40:21
Speaker 1: to it. But I think it's gone back even further
40:23
Speaker 1: than that. But the question of whether it's Southern or
40:26
Speaker 1: not seems to be an issue. And if you ask um,
40:29
Speaker 1: a lot of Southerners will be like, no, this is
40:31
Speaker 1: not a Southern dish. But they think that black migrants
40:35
Speaker 1: from the South showing up in New York and l
40:37
Speaker 1: a were the ones that developed it. So it's still
40:39
Speaker 1: got a link to the South. It's just not necessarily
40:42
Speaker 1: a Southern dish. Um. Did you ever eat at Gladys
40:46
Speaker 1: Knight's House of Chicken and Waffles? No, because I was
40:48
Speaker 1: living away at the time when it was open, it
40:51
Speaker 1: was It was open till two thousand seventeen, Oh, in Atlanta.
40:54
Speaker 1: I thought it went away before that. No, it was
40:57
Speaker 1: open till then. I looked it up because I wanted
40:59
Speaker 1: to make sure I remember correctly. That wasn't there anymore,
41:02
Speaker 1: and that's not Unfortunately I missed out. Sorry Gladys Okay,
41:08
Speaker 1: it's amazing. She had such a great singing voice. When
41:10
Speaker 1: she spoke like that, well she was saving her voice
41:13
Speaker 1: for singing. Uh And jeez, I hate to go off
41:17
Speaker 1: track again, but since we mentioned her, I do need
41:19
Speaker 1: to mention that my favorite backing vocals of all time
41:22
Speaker 1: was the Pips on Midnight Train to Georgia. Really that
41:26
Speaker 1: if you just listen to the background singers in that song,
41:29
Speaker 1: just gorgeous, beautiful. Another thing you can do is go
41:32
Speaker 1: listen to David Lee Roth singing without the music. That's
41:36
Speaker 1: really something to listen to as well. Yeah, those are good.
41:40
Speaker 1: Or the or any music video without the music is
41:42
Speaker 1: always fun too, Yeah, especially when like you can hear
41:45
Speaker 1: their shoes squeaking and everything the sneaker squeak so um chuck.
41:51
Speaker 1: If you were alive and on social media in one
41:58
Speaker 1: there is basically no way you weren't aware of what's
42:01
Speaker 1: come to be known as the Chicken Sandwich Wars. Yeah,
42:04
Speaker 1: it was a big deal. Um. There's a gentleman named
42:08
Speaker 1: Truett Cathy who founded a restaurant called Chick fil A
42:12
Speaker 1: and claimed to be the first maker of the chicken
42:15
Speaker 1: sandwich in the nineteen sixties. We have, you know, literal
42:19
Speaker 1: proof that What he really meant to say was I'm
42:21
Speaker 1: the first white man to sell chicken sandwiches in a restaurant,
42:25
Speaker 1: because there had been chicken sandwiches going back to the
42:28
Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, um, in places like Topeka, Kansas. Uh. In
42:34
Speaker 1: Ebony magazine, they were uh, they were talking about the dish. Uh.
42:38
Speaker 1: So it's been around for a long time. Chakathy did
42:41
Speaker 1: not invent the chicken sandwich, and they need to stop
42:43
Speaker 1: saying that. But chick I don't think that. But Chick
42:48
Speaker 1: fil a is very famous for their chicken fried chicken
42:51
Speaker 1: sandwich with a butter bun with pickles, and so all
42:55
Speaker 1: of the all of the other fast food joints I
42:58
Speaker 1: think beginning with Popeye said wait a minute, like some
43:00
Speaker 1: of us are selling chicken sandwiches, but we should kind
43:03
Speaker 1: of just do what they're doing. And the chicken wars started.
43:06
Speaker 1: Chicken sandwich wars. Yeah. It somehow it started with like
43:10
Speaker 1: some subtweets and shade being thrown on social media and
43:13
Speaker 1: people clapping back, and between August of two thousand nineteen,
43:20
Speaker 1: when I believe Popeye's debuted their chicken sandwich in February, okay,
43:25
Speaker 1: less than two years eighteen national and regional chains debuted
43:32
Speaker 1: or upgraded their chicken sandwiches in just that short amount
43:35
Speaker 1: of time. And that's the reason why again is that's
43:38
Speaker 1: why it's become known as the Chicken sandwich Wars. And
43:41
Speaker 1: I was reading about it. I read one of the
43:43
Speaker 1: most corporate buzz speaky articles I've ever read in my
43:46
Speaker 1: life about the phenomenon of the Chicken sandwich wars, and
43:50
Speaker 1: this one executive they call them quick service restaurants now,
43:53
Speaker 1: not fast food restaurants. This one QSR executive explained that
43:58
Speaker 1: um Chicken has a longer innovation runway then things like
44:03
Speaker 1: burgers that basically burgers have been done to death. There's
44:06
Speaker 1: nothing more you can do with the burger they've been trying.
44:09
Speaker 1: But Chicken, it's wide open. But then this I think
44:12
Speaker 1: it was a hype beast article said at the end like, well,
44:15
Speaker 1: if the innovation runway so long, basically everybody's just coming
44:18
Speaker 1: out with their own version of the exact same sandwich,
44:21
Speaker 1: and are we really innovating at this point? And I
44:25
Speaker 1: think they ultimately said, well, if that's what the people want,
44:27
Speaker 1: give them what they want. Yeah. I I do agree
44:29
Speaker 1: though that I hate the longer runway corporate speak. But
44:33
Speaker 1: you can do a lot of things with the chicken breast,
44:36
Speaker 1: and it's usually breast that's being made for the sandwich.
44:39
Speaker 1: Good point. You know, you can have like a honey
44:42
Speaker 1: soy glaze, or you can have it like a saracha thing,
44:44
Speaker 1: or you can have it fully buffalo hot. Uh. You
44:48
Speaker 1: can throw some cheese and bacon on there. You can
44:50
Speaker 1: have lettuce and tomato like. There are a lot of
44:53
Speaker 1: I think, more variations on what you can do, so
44:55
Speaker 1: I would agree with that. Yeah. And speaking of hot,
44:57
Speaker 1: I'm meant to tell you Prince's menu includes a light mild,
45:02
Speaker 1: so not even mild light mild, so they've got something
45:05
Speaker 1: for you to chuck. Yeah. And speaking of hot, I
45:08
Speaker 1: also want to mention that cold fried chicken is even better. Yeah.
45:11
Speaker 1: It is really good. Yep, for sure, it travels well. Yeah.
45:17
Speaker 1: So the chicken wars are still pretty much going on.
45:21
Speaker 1: They're probably going to be going on for a long time.
45:23
Speaker 1: But I think it's turned into more of a cold
45:25
Speaker 1: boar than the hot war it was. Um, but Olivia
45:29
Speaker 1: helped us with this. I don't I don't know if
45:31
Speaker 1: you if we mentioned it or not, but um, we
45:34
Speaker 1: really can't finish this episode without talking a little bit
45:37
Speaker 1: about the science like why fried chicken is so good
45:39
Speaker 1: because if you stop and think about it, it is
45:41
Speaker 1: an incredibly simple dish. You just take some chicken, you
45:45
Speaker 1: dip it in some sort of flour based mixture. Um,
45:49
Speaker 1: you put it in hot oil, and then you eat it.
45:52
Speaker 1: That's really all there is to it. Yeah, it can
45:55
Speaker 1: be that simple. Uh. And that is a very simple
45:58
Speaker 1: like dry fry prep ration, the sort of the lighter
46:03
Speaker 1: the flower for me, the better. Um. But you can
46:06
Speaker 1: you can brine it overnight. That is a really really
46:09
Speaker 1: great way to make it super juicy. Um. I don't
46:12
Speaker 1: think he listens to the show, but I'm a big
46:15
Speaker 1: proponent and follower of Kenji Lopez Alt um great Instagram
46:19
Speaker 1: page and just seems like a good guy. And he's
46:22
Speaker 1: I think he's buddies with John Hodgman and Jesse Thorn
46:25
Speaker 1: and appears on their show. So shouting out Kenji Lopez
46:28
Speaker 1: Alt because he always breaks down food science in a
46:32
Speaker 1: way that's like really cool, like hey, here's why, like
46:37
Speaker 1: the reasons behind the fried chicken or the chocolate chip cookie,
46:41
Speaker 1: and here's what's actually happening and why I say to
46:44
Speaker 1: prepare or why people recommend you prepare things a certain way. Uh.
46:48
Speaker 1: And in this case, um Kenji Lopez Alt says, you know,
46:52
Speaker 1: you can add garla hot sauce, you can add dil,
46:54
Speaker 1: but really brining it is one of the big keys
46:58
Speaker 1: because you want to get that salt go in in
47:01
Speaker 1: like in a cellular way. Yeah. Remember our old friend homeostasis.
47:07
Speaker 1: So when you dip a bird or soak a bird
47:10
Speaker 1: in brine, which is at least one tablespoon per one
47:14
Speaker 1: cup of water, that's a basic salt brine. Um, the
47:18
Speaker 1: salt concentration outside of the bird's cells is higher than
47:21
Speaker 1: the concentration inside the bird cells. So the stuff outside
47:25
Speaker 1: migrates inside, and in doing so, it actually allows it
47:29
Speaker 1: to draw in more water. Because when you're frying chicken,
47:34
Speaker 1: it's actually and by the way, I remember our super
47:36
Speaker 1: Stuff Guide to the Economy and that one economist is
47:38
Speaker 1: like chicken. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that every time
47:43
Speaker 1: I say chicken ever since then, I always think of him.
47:46
Speaker 1: But um, when you fry chicken, it's a it's a
47:49
Speaker 1: very dehydrating process because you're cooking it in oil that's
47:53
Speaker 1: really efficient at transferring the heat and So when you
47:56
Speaker 1: add um that much more water that ability a whole water,
48:01
Speaker 1: you you lose a bunch, but you still retain a bunch,
48:03
Speaker 1: which makes for juicy, juicy chicken. Yeah. And it also
48:07
Speaker 1: like helps break down the proteins and the muscles and
48:10
Speaker 1: breaking down those fibers is gonna make it more tender. Uh.
48:13
Speaker 1: It's all just gonna make it more delicious. Uh. That's
48:17
Speaker 1: why you brian your turkey before Thanksgiving. Uh. Since we're
48:20
Speaker 1: shouting out books, uh, Jake Kenji Lopez Al Has written
48:23
Speaker 1: quite a few, but had one out this year UM
48:26
Speaker 1: called The Walk Recipes and Techniques, where he just basically
48:30
Speaker 1: sings the praises of the walk and it's like you
48:32
Speaker 1: can do so many things in a walk, and it's
48:35
Speaker 1: not just about making a stir fry. So check out
48:37
Speaker 1: The Walk, Good Good book town on yourself, and also
48:41
Speaker 1: check out UM the this He was interviewed UM in
48:45
Speaker 1: an article in inverse Um talking about the science of
48:48
Speaker 1: fried chicken, and the author does a really good job
48:51
Speaker 1: of um tracing their own journey and trying fried chicken
48:54
Speaker 1: and gives a lot of great tips because it's a
48:56
Speaker 1: really as simple as it is, it's a very intricate
48:59
Speaker 1: process that you can screw up really fast if you
49:02
Speaker 1: let your oil get too hot, if you let the
49:04
Speaker 1: chicken brown too long, if you use the wrong kind
49:06
Speaker 1: of seasonings. There's you want to do some research first
49:09
Speaker 1: before you try it. But if you do it just right,
49:12
Speaker 1: it comes out like chuck will be knocking on your
49:15
Speaker 1: door if you do it right. Yeah, that authors Eric Decker.
49:18
Speaker 1: So you can also look at Eric Decker's recipes. Uh,
49:22
Speaker 1: you've got to use the right kind of oil. Different
49:23
Speaker 1: people have different things to say about oils, but you
49:27
Speaker 1: want to have a high smoke point. Um. So you know,
49:30
Speaker 1: everything from beef and duck fat to peanut oil to
49:33
Speaker 1: saffler safflower oil is recommended. And just experiment with it,
49:38
Speaker 1: get in there and trying to skill it deep prying. Really,
49:42
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all gonna be messy, it's all gonna
49:44
Speaker 1: stink your kitchen up. It's it's just a it's a
49:46
Speaker 1: lot to undertake. But um, that's why I don't really
49:49
Speaker 1: make it at home that much anymore. But it's good stuff.
49:54
Speaker 1: I love it. There's a couple of things you could
49:56
Speaker 1: invest in just real quick that are fairly cheap. One
49:59
Speaker 1: is a um grease splattering cover. Yeah, yeah, one of those.
50:03
Speaker 1: Take a little screen. It works really well, doesn't it's
50:05
Speaker 1: just cleaning it his gross. And then the other thing
50:07
Speaker 1: is a candy thermometer. You can get them for very cheap,
50:10
Speaker 1: and you want to basically get the oil to a
50:12
Speaker 1: very specific temperature when you're frying, and keep it at
50:16
Speaker 1: that temperature as much as possible. Yeah, Okay, that's it,
50:20
Speaker 1: and then go forth and make fried chicken. How about that? Yeah,
50:22
Speaker 1: just don't bred it too much. There you go. Wise
50:25
Speaker 1: words from Chuck. Uh. And since I said that, everybody,
50:29
Speaker 1: of course, it's time for a listener mail. Hey guys,
50:35
Speaker 1: long time listener, first time writer in, or want to
50:37
Speaker 1: chime in and let you know how much your show
50:39
Speaker 1: means to me. I'm a nineties kid turned dad, and
50:41
Speaker 1: I always find your shows delivery well cared for, as
50:44
Speaker 1: well as your constant vigilance to remain as unbiased as
50:47
Speaker 1: possible when presenting a topic. I have a young son
50:50
Speaker 1: I always try to set a good example for as
50:53
Speaker 1: well as encouraging exploration of the world around him, and
50:56
Speaker 1: I find Chuck's candidness about the ups and downs of
50:58
Speaker 1: raising his daughter particular really helpful. In my day to
51:01
Speaker 1: day anyway, Guys, I'm a city planner for a city
51:04
Speaker 1: in Florida and it's a public sector government employee in
51:06
Speaker 1: the heart of the sub South. Consistently find myself greeting
51:10
Speaker 1: my teeth, dealing with every flavor of quote Florida mand
51:14
Speaker 1: and listening to your show always revised my sanity. After
51:17
Speaker 1: a tough day at work as an urban planner, I
51:19
Speaker 1: found that your show is about urban planning. Central Park
51:21
Speaker 1: the World's Fair have been my favorite. Go Too is
51:23
Speaker 1: a new more recent shows on license plates in vasectomies
51:26
Speaker 1: helped spur my to do list of both renewing my
51:29
Speaker 1: registration and uh, you know the other thing too. Last thing.
51:34
Speaker 1: Very happy to hear that you guys are getting back
51:35
Speaker 1: on the road. Any chance for a Central Florida show
51:38
Speaker 1: in the future. Thanks for everything you do. Still trying
51:41
Speaker 1: to get my wife on in on the Worst Kept
51:44
Speaker 1: Secret and podcasting, but one day I'll get to her. Cheers.
51:48
Speaker 1: That is from Mike l and uh Mike. In addition
51:50
Speaker 1: to talking about Nashville, I think we're probably gonna I
51:53
Speaker 1: want to try another Orlando show this year, right, Yeah,
51:56
Speaker 1: why not? Let's do it. Orlando is a great town. Yeah,
51:58
Speaker 1: so I think we're we're gonna try and make one
51:59
Speaker 1: of our little swings hometown show in Atlanta and Orlando
52:04
Speaker 1: for Josh and then Nashville because it's close and we've
52:08
Speaker 1: never been there. Nashville for Princes. Yeah, well exactly was that, Mike?
52:15
Speaker 1: It was mike L. Mike L. Okay, thanks a lot, Mike.
52:18
Speaker 1: That was a great email. Thank you for that, and
52:20
Speaker 1: we're glad we can help you keep your sanity. Uh
52:22
Speaker 1: And if you want to be like mike L and
52:24
Speaker 1: get in touch with us, you can wrap it up
52:26
Speaker 1: in an email, spank it on the bottom, and send
52:28
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52:35
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