The Southern Fried Chicken Dilemma

It’s no secret that here in the south we take our fried chicken seriously. Recently, I discovered how seriously. To be honest, I’d learned the lesson about ten years ago when according to my family, I dishonored my heritage and was accused of “chicken counterfeiting.” I won’t deny it, I pled guilty and was practically disowned. (Hey, I couldn’t lie my way out of it, the proof had been caught on film.)

To this day, if fried chicken is brought up at a family gathering--and duh, it always is because the world would end if the Hunt bunch got together and didn’t have the finger-licking, artery-clogging pieces of meat as an offering—I get snickered at and reminded of my failings.

You must know, I learned how to cook fowl about the same time I was potty trained. As a matter of fact, I think there’s one of those pictures of me wearing a diaper, appropriately showing a bit of plumber’s crack, (I am my daddy’s daughter) standing on a chair watching grandma cook Sunday dinner. According to my grandmother, every southern gal should know how to fry a mean bird.

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that my generation got off easy. My grandma, even my mother, didn’t have to just know how to fry the mean bird, they got to know the mean part up close and personal. They had to catch that bird, ring its neck, de-feather it, and cut the bird up into recognizable pieces of meat. Today Swanson takes care of all that for us. Between you and I, if I had to kill something to eat it, I wouldn’t have to belong to Weight Watchers.

I can remember watching my grandma drop the flour-coated pieces of meat into the cast iron skillet. It was that memory and the guilt brought on by the reminiscence that lead to my crime. You see, I realized that I’d failed my family responsibility and not taught my then teenage daughter the fine art of bird frying. I had good reasons. I had been brained washed by the Surgeon General into believing the southern “Crisco-is-a-food-group” way of thinking was a crime. I had even tossed away my “bacon grease/seasoning for every dish” drippings bowl that had been centered on my stove.

So, to make up for this failing, I decided to teach the frying chicken art to my daughter and to even write a heart-felt essay about passing down family recipes. I wrote it and it was beautiful. I sold it, and I beamed with pride. The magazine contacted me and asked if I could supply photos to accompany the feature article. That was when I learned a very important lesson—always throw away the evidence!

You see, after all the non-frying years in which I fit into my size five jeans, I could still fry a mean bird. Oh, it tasted finger-licking, so bad-for-you good. My only problem was . . . my mean bird wasn’t photo pretty. After the second frying failed to provide the Kodak moment I needed, I cratered. I went to a good friend of mine for help.

Colonel Sanders with Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I dusted myself and my daughter up with a few sprays of flour, popped my KFC into a skillet, set up the tripod and got the images I needed. No one ever needed to know. And they wouldn’t have if I hadn’t forgotten to remove the red and white bucket from the kitchen that was caught on film in the background.

Now the magazine was kind enough to cut the edge of the photo out, but I’d made the huge mistake of providing my family copies of the photos and article before it appeared.

Needless to say, my hubby supported me against the onslaught of remarks for bringing shame to my grandmother’s recipe. It wasn’t easy for my husband, because southern men have deep emotional ties to all things southern-fried. And recently I discovered just how deep my husband’s ties are for fried chicken. As a matter of fact, I’m worried about him.

Here in Texas we have a cafeteria called Luby’s. Luby’s is practically a Texas tradition. Well, recently during some of these hard economic times, Luby’s was sold to another restaurant group. Now they raised the prices, for which my oh-so frugal husband threw a fit about. But that fit was nothing to what happened last week.

The fact it was Sunday made the crime much more hideous. We were in line and my husband started picking out his menu selection. He didn’t see the fried chicken, but he assumed they were frying up a fresh batch. So when he told the man behind the counter what he wanted, and this poor man made the terrible mistake of looking my husband in the eyes and saying, “We don’t have fried chicken today,” and stared at my husband who had eaten fried chicken at Luby’s for last forty years, as if he had the audacity to expect fried chicken on Sunday. Well, let me tell you, it wasn’t pretty.

According to my husband, it is un-American and a sin against mankind for Luby’s not to serve fried chicken any day of the week, but on Sundays? He stood there in the middle of that cafeteria line and announced, “Fried chicken is the backbone upon which Luby’s name was built.” And he said it with such passion and devotion that I took my heart-healthy-weight-watcher-approved grilled fish, scooted away, and pretended I didn’t know him.
He asked to speak to the manager, and the man made his second mistake of saying, “You’re talking to him.”

Hubby ended up eating a vegetable plate, but he wasn’t happy. And there wasn’t one person in the restaurant who didn’t know it. Yup, hubby is like me in that he doesn’t mind talking to strangers. Even as we walked to our car, he informed everyone going inside, “You might as well turn around. They don’t have fried chicken.” Much to my surprise, a few couples actually got in their cars and left.

Anyway, my husband has researched the location of the Luby’s Corporation, and next week he’ll be knocking on their door. And while I’m gonna be busy that day, I did crater and do as he asked and blog about it. Not sure this is exactly what he had in mind, but it’s the best I could do.

Don’t misunderstand, I’m guilty of having a piece of fried chicken on occasion. However, if my hubby doesn’t let this go, I’m thinking about starting a Fried Chicken Anonymous group and checking on having him detoxed.

So what about you? What’s on your menu for supper tonight? Any family recipes to share? I will post my grandmother’s chicken recipe in the comments section. Just remember, it’s so good, it’s bad for you, but it ain’t pretty.

Crime Scene Christie—the Chicken Counterfeiter

Oh...and for the blog I love . . . oh, I wish I could pick two or three. I read different blogs for different reasons. But I guess I'll have to name my Bookends blog as one of the best for information on and about the market.