5 things you may not know about fried chicken

Who can resist a piece of fried chicken?

Golden and crispy on the outside, tender and juicy on the inside

--tasty!

It is said that fried chicken originated in the United States. Is this true?

01Attributed to the Scots or Ancient Egyptians

While it's unlikely that either group was credited with inventing fried chicken, historians believe they both had a hand in it. Wildfowl were raised in Southeast Asia between 7500 and 5000 B.C., and stewed chicken appears in records from China, West Africa, and the Middle East. From the Middle East, chickens made their way to ancient Egypt, where images of them were used to decorate the tombs of pharaohs and their meat was fed to slaves who built the pyramids.

From Egypt, chicken spread to Greece and other parts of the Mediterranean, and then to the British Isles. The American favorite fried chicken was probably brought to the United States by Scottish immigrants, who preferred to pan-fry their chicken rather than boil or roast it like the British did.

However, as an article in The Atlantic puts it, "While we can't say for sure whether it was African slaves or Southerners of European descent who first decided to fry chicken, we do know that West Africans had a tradition of deep-frying food, and that fried chicken as we know it today originated in the American South."

02The American South perfected it

The earliest American fried chicken recipe appeared in a book called The Virginia Housewife, or The Methodical Cook, published in 1825. The book was written by Mary Randolph and is considered by many to be the first cookbook published in the United States. The inclusion of a recipe for fried chicken in the book speaks to the place fried chicken has held in the American culinary landscape, and Randolph's recipe is familiar to cooks today.

Before World War II, fried chicken was a special occasion dish, and since chicken was not cheap and laborious to prepare, it was not often served in restaurants.

03 Apartheid helped it prosper

Slave codes in the American South prohibited enslaved people from raising pigs or cattle, but allowed chickens, which were considered too insignificant. This, combined with the chicken's delicious taste, made it a favorite of slaves and the plantation owners for whom they cooked.

But eating fried chicken has unfortunately become associated with ugly racial stereotypes. In the 1915 racist film The Birth of a Nation, a scene depicts black elected officials eating fried chicken in a noisy, greedy manner, showing how “dangerous” they are.

However, fried chicken also provided a way to improve one's fortunes. During and after the Civil War, African American women in Gordonsville, Virginia, often sold fried chicken and other foods to passengers on trains as a way to make money. Gordonsville became known as the "Fried Chicken Capital of the World."

Before the 1960s, Jim Crow laws in South Africa prohibited African Americans from eating in most restaurants, so they often traveled with fried chicken in shoe boxes lined with wax paper. Fried chicken did not require refrigeration, so it was ideal for traveling on long trips, whether by train or car.

04 KFC Colonel didn’t become famous overnight

Harland Sanders was a tire salesman, a gas station owner, a soldier (“Colonel” was an honorary title bestowed by the governor of Kentucky in 1936), and many other jobs. Then he came up with a genius way to quickly cook fried chicken, using a pressure cooker and a secret seasoning. He sold the dish at a restaurant he opened in Corbin, Kentucky, but it didn’t catch on.

However, he did succeed in selling the recipe to another restaurant, which gave Sanders an idea. At age 65, he began selling his fried chicken recipe and the rights to use the "Kentucky Fried Chicken" name to businesses in exchange for a 5-cent franchise fee for each chicken sold. He adopted the white suit as part of his Kentucky Colonel image. By 1964, when he sold his company, there were 600 franchises.

Today, KFC is one of the world's most well-known fast food brands, with more than 18,000 franchise stores in 115 countries.

05Fried chicken is global

KFC made Southern fried chicken a worldwide phenomenon—even though, as mentioned, the dish originated in other countries. However, there are now Korean fried chicken chains and Guatemalan fried chicken chain Pollo Campero in the U.S., and home cooks can make fried chicken dishes like Indonesian Ayam Goreng and Italian Pollo frito. Who knows where the next fried chicken craze will come from?

fried chicken

Mouth-watering...