WEBVTT - Juicy: The Fried Chicken Story 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.160 Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.400 and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, in spirit, and 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:24.000 that makes this Stuff you Should Know Chuck's Favorite Food edition. Yeah, 0:00:24.280 --> 0:00:27.360 my favorite food this is I don't blame you, Chuck, 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:29.840 like I love fried chicken, but I love it even 0:00:29.840 --> 0:00:32.680 more after researching this, I've just got this whole must 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.959 have attitude. And I think that that brings up an 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:38.560 important point that we should lead with, which is, if 0:00:38.600 --> 0:00:41.920 you are vegan, you should probably skip this episode because 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:43.560 you're not going to be vegan by the end of it. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.040 I'll tell you that much. Yeah. You know, people ask 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:49.600 the favorite food question. You get that a lot in 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:52.440 your life, and I guess I sort of went back 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.000 and forth over the years with different things. But it's 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:59.760 fried chicken. It is fried chicken. Okay, Well, then are 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:02.720 you are I'm guessing something of an expert for Atlanta 0:01:02.760 --> 0:01:08.479 fried chicken, best fried chicken in Atlanta. Oh man, Sorry 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:09.600 to put you on the spot. Do you want to 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:11.840 come back to it at the end of the episode. Well, no, 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:13.679 I was afraid you would ask me, what, like, what 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:17.440 my favorite of all time? Was there something? Um, that's 0:01:17.480 --> 0:01:21.400 really hard because because there's so many kind of small variations, 0:01:21.440 --> 0:01:24.680 and I love fried chicken so much. I love so 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.200 many different kinds that I don't know that I could 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:30.600 say that I've ever had it, like put down my 0:01:30.680 --> 0:01:33.720 fork and me like, are my fingers really and said, 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:35.840 this is hands down, like the best fried chicken I've 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:38.119 ever had. I've said this is some of the best 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.920 fried chicken I've ever had a lot, but I will 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:42.920 say this, and it is a little controversial if you 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:46.160 live in the South to take a grocery store allegiance 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:50.480 like this. But Publix is known for their fried chicken. 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:53.720 I don't like it. I like I like Croger's fried 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.400 chicken better, much better. I've never had Kroger's fried chicken. 0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:59.920 But I don't like public Is fried chicken either. It's 0:02:00.080 --> 0:02:02.680 not good. It's too bready for me. And I don't 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:06.280 know if it's my local Publics, but it always tastes 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.639 like it's like the oil is old acrid. Yeah, man, 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.120 it's just doesn't do it. I love Kroger's fried chicken. 0:02:14.240 --> 0:02:19.280 I'm a big fan of minimal breading. Let that chicken 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:23.520 skin shine and uh, sort of a dry fry is 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:28.720 more my my jam. I have had the experience of 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:33.480 putting my fork down, actually my fingers down and saying 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:35.320 like that was the best fried chicken I've ever had. 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:41.200 It was, um remember that that restaurant indicator Watershed. Oh sure. 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:45.960 So the head chef was Scott Peacock and he and 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:50.440 his mentor Edna Lewis came up with this fried chicken 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.359 recipe that they used to serve it at Watershed. It 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:57.560 was I mean, I've never had anything even approaching it, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:02:59.440 and I've had really good fried chicken too, I would 0:02:59.440 --> 0:03:04.160 say second probably Colonnade over on chester Bridge really good, 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:07.320 but this was it was just an entirely different level. 0:03:07.520 --> 0:03:10.000 And you can find the recipe online really easily, and 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:15.400 it's pretty, it's pretty hashtag basic, but something about it 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:19.680 all comes together and makes it just just astoundingly good. 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:22.960 It's so good. Yeah, it's just so good, Chuck. I 0:03:22.960 --> 0:03:28.799 think Emily Sailors from Indigo Girls was co owner or 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:31.040 owner of Watershed for a while, may still be. I 0:03:31.040 --> 0:03:33.960 don't know, No, she sold it, okay, I think yeah, 0:03:34.360 --> 0:03:36.720 And they moved and Scott Peacock moved on and everything 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:38.520 it was it was like the Beatles for a second. 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:40.560 I am also going to carry out this and shout 0:03:40.600 --> 0:03:44.720 out my grandmother Bryant Opeal. Bryant's fright chicken was really 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:47.600 my favorite. I haven't had it, you know. She died 0:03:47.640 --> 0:03:51.920 at the age of a hundred and one, uh, about 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:55.960 eight years ago, but she hadn't been cooking for a 0:03:55.960 --> 0:03:59.280 while either, So it's been since I was probably in 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:02.840 my twenties since I had opals uh, and hers was 0:04:03.280 --> 0:04:05.760 And I'm a big fan of this preparation, not deep 0:04:05.760 --> 0:04:10.400 fried or pressure fried, but skillet fried, which is when 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.120 you have a cast iron skillet and you're you know, 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.279 you're flipping the chicken. You're letting it fry and flipping 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:20.800 the chicken because it's not completely covered in oil. And 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.680 she also used just whatever grease was in the big 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.000 jar on her stovetop. She would just throw all the 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:31.560 grease in there from everything she ever cooked, and it 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:35.919 would harden or you know, uh, congeal into this lardie 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:38.680 jar of goodness. So she would just kind of just 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:41.600 slop whatever that was. Um, so it's probably some bacon 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:45.559 grease in there, not probably most definitely country ham stuff. 0:04:45.560 --> 0:04:49.880 That was all kinds of of meaty congealed fat in there. 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:55.119 Yeah it sounds good. Her stuff was so good. So um. Yeah, 0:04:55.360 --> 0:04:58.200 So we're talking fried chicken. We could just keep doing 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.320 this if you want. I know, we should start food 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.200 show maybe when we eventually retire. If we start a 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:08.400 food show, we're naming it Opal Bryant's Fried Chicken, Okay, okay, 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.200 or if we ever open a restaurant, that will be 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:15.120 the name. So yeah, we'll do a food show sometime sometime. 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:16.960 This will be one of those things where we can 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:19.040 be like and our fried chicken episode that we did 0:05:19.160 --> 0:05:22.000 years back was really good too. This is gonna be 0:05:22.040 --> 0:05:24.640 like that kind of episode. So we're talking fried chicken, 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.200 and it's one of those things where everyone associates the 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.480 dish with the American South, and for good reason, that's 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.640 kind of where it it caught its um. It was 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:38.039 established in the way that we understand it today, which 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:41.120 is from what I can tell bone in chicken pieces, 0:05:41.800 --> 0:05:47.080 breaded and fried in oil, and that is fried chicken. 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:50.800 That's American Southern American fried chicken. That's what purists will 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:54.560 tell you. Anything different is is not technically fried chicken. 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:56.680 But the American South is kind of where it got 0:05:56.680 --> 0:05:59.800 its start, but it dates back even further further than that, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:03.960 and even weirder, it seems like it might have come 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:08.800 from a specific place in Europe originally too. Yeah, Scotland, 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.200 if you can believe that there are appearances, I mean, 0:06:13.200 --> 0:06:16.080 people would be being people have been eating chickens for 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.440 a long time. Uh. You can find recipes in books 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:23.680 from the eighteenth century for fried chicken. Uh. Those one 0:06:23.720 --> 0:06:27.400 in seventeen thirty six. There was one in seventeen forty 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:31.039 seven where it's you know, clearly dipped in flour, fried 0:06:31.120 --> 0:06:33.720 in some kind of lard. But it seemed like the 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.919 Scots are the ones who started frying it. And I 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:38.520 looked up this up in a lot of places and 0:06:38.600 --> 0:06:40.880 kind of saw the same thing. Uh. You know, the 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.160 Brits didn't really care that much about eating things that 0:06:43.240 --> 0:06:46.960 tasted good, so they would boil or bake their chicken. 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:49.720 That baked chicken could be good, but boiled chicken can 0:06:49.800 --> 0:06:54.640 never be good. Uh. And the Scots said, no, we'll 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:59.080 flay it, and so they started frying it up in lard. 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:02.920 And we're really onto something, as it turned out. Yeah, 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:06.160 And the reason why at least one food is Storian is. 0:07:06.440 --> 0:07:08.440 This is their theory. But the reason why it kind 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.760 of has legs is that a lot of the Scots 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:18.920 and Scott's Irish um colonists who came to the United States, um, 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:23.960 they owned slaves, enslaved people, and they think that the 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:29.120 Scots taught their slaves to cook this for them, and 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:35.920 that's where the origination of um black American Southerners having 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.600 this um like being the kind of the place where 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:41.840 fried chicken originated. That's where they think that it probably 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:44.920 came from Scotland. Yeah, And I mean, I think what 0:07:44.960 --> 0:07:47.520 we can say for sure is that's where it was perfected. 0:07:48.120 --> 0:07:52.480 Were these enslaved women, Uh they spiced it in such 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.680 a way because Scotland and in the UK, like, they're 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.760 not known for their for their they're doing much better now, 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:03.960 but they weren't known for the most flavorful um spiced food. 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.280 So it was even though they were frying chicken, it 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:09.200 was it was known as a little more bland until 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:12.360 they got to the American South and these women started 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.240 spicing it right, and that's where it became this this 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:19.200 really really scrumptious and delicious food that we know today 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:24.160 brought over from Scotland, but perfected in the American South. Yeah, 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:26.720 I think the theory, the other theory that was, you know, 0:08:26.920 --> 0:08:30.240 long held is that it was brought over by um 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:35.160 West African slaves to America. Um, but I think people 0:08:35.200 --> 0:08:37.880 have done investigations around West Africa and there isn't a 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.440 fried chicken dish that. Um. They would fry their chicken 0:08:40.520 --> 0:08:43.040 lightly over there, but then they would braise it for 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:45.240 the rest of the time. And I think the Brits 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.560 would do that too. Um, you know, it isn't the same, 0:08:48.640 --> 0:08:51.040 so they actually do think it kind of came from Scotland, 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:55.640 but yes, perfected by um enslaved cook women in the 0:08:55.679 --> 0:08:58.240 American South. And there's mentions of it too, I think, 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:01.040 dating back to the seventeenth cent so it is an 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.480 all American dish for sure. Yeah, it was. Um, it 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:05.960 was a dish that was a little more of a 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.920 treat at the time, at least preceding the Civil War. Uh. 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.080 It was very labor intensive to get these chickens and 0:09:13.080 --> 0:09:16.319 to pluck the chickens and prepare them and cut them up. 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:18.800 And it wasn't like just like throwing a whole plucked 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:21.640 chicken into a pot kind of thing. Uh. There was 0:09:21.640 --> 0:09:24.560 no air conditioning obviously, so like you know, laboring over 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.160 a hot stove all day in hot grease. It was 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:29.440 just a lot to undertake. So it was a little 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.960 more of a of a fancy meal to have, um, 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.000 like on the fourth of July maybe or a big 0:09:35.040 --> 0:09:40.079 like birthday celebration. And even though uh, these women, these 0:09:40.160 --> 0:09:44.200 enslaved women were perfecting this dish, Uh, they their family 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:48.040 wasn't really allowed to eat it that much until they 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:51.439 were able to raise their own chickens. Um. There were 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.720 laws or I don't know about laws per se, but 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:57.320 um and slay people weren't allowed to own cattle. They 0:09:57.320 --> 0:09:59.960 weren't allowed to own pigs, but chickens were sort of 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:04.240 seen as not very significant enough to restrict at the time. 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:08.520 So they let enslave people you know, own and raise chickens. Uh, 0:10:08.559 --> 0:10:11.240 some of which they would actually at the plantation buy 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:15.079 from them to eat. Yeah. I think Monicello bought um 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:19.040 their chickens from their enslaved people working there. Yeah, I 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:22.400 think you're right. So, um, there was a up shot, 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:26.480 or there was an upside of the black women that 0:10:26.559 --> 0:10:30.319 were cooking this under duress at the time, who learned 0:10:30.320 --> 0:10:36.679 to perfect this dish. Was that after um emancipation, when 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:39.440 the Jim Crow South started, they were a lot of 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:42.640 them were able to support themselves by selling fried chicken 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.320 because they were the only ones who knew how to 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.760 make it correctly. And so there were there There was 0:10:48.800 --> 0:10:54.120 a UM, a woman, American studies scholar named Psyche Williams Forsen, 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:57.520 who wrote a book basically so this chicken made this 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:00.120 house or this house was made by chicken. Yeah, was 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:04.520 called Building Houses out of Chicken Legs. Col Black Women, 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:07.160 Food and Power. Uh. And I do want to shout 0:11:07.160 --> 0:11:08.719 her out too, because she has a new book out 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.120 this year that looks great. It seems like she really 0:11:11.160 --> 0:11:16.439 explores um sort of the diaspora and how that affected 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.199 foods that Black people ended up eating sort of around 0:11:20.200 --> 0:11:22.600 the world, especially in America. Uh. And there's a new 0:11:22.600 --> 0:11:26.000 one called Eating While Black, Food, Shaming and Race in 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.320 America that just came out this year. And I saw 0:11:28.360 --> 0:11:30.720 a couple of interviews whetherr She's just it's amazing stuff 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.720 that she's writing right on. So one of the things 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:38.240 UM that she explored where these um women called waiter 0:11:38.400 --> 0:11:44.680 carriers who would show up along the tracks at railroad stops, um, 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.360 you know, and this was a time like when railroads 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:50.800 had really just kind of started up, and you couldn't 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:53.760 really get food anywhere on these cars. Dining cars hadn't 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.880 been invented yet. So these um, the these black women 0:11:56.960 --> 0:11:59.640 who were called waiter carriers would show up with pies 0:12:00.200 --> 0:12:04.200 or coffee or fresh picked berries or fried chicken and 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:07.040 would sell them like hand them to the customers on 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:09.920 the train through the windows. I think they sold chicken 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:13.400 breasts for like twenty five cents apiece and other like 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:16.800 like drumsticks and thighs for I think five cents apiece 0:12:16.840 --> 0:12:21.360 something like that. And there's a specific town called Gordonsville, Virginia, 0:12:21.720 --> 0:12:24.760 which became known as the chicken fried chicken capital of 0:12:24.800 --> 0:12:27.960 the world. And apparently some people would go out of 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.319 their way to stop in Gordonsville, Virginia on their train 0:12:31.440 --> 0:12:34.520 journey so that they could buy the fried chicken there. Yeah, 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:38.200 it was. It was a regional hub in Gordonsville at 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:43.080 the time. And they still have a pretty robust fried 0:12:43.160 --> 0:12:47.920 chicken festival, I think in October. I think we missed 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:50.880 it this year, but I saw them refer to themselves 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:54.319 as the chicken leg Center of the Universe, which is 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:56.880 another fun name. But we should also point out while 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:02.400 this great sort of entrepreneurial spirit was being weren't after emancipation, 0:13:02.679 --> 0:13:05.200 a lot of these women were also harassed and robbed 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:07.360 and things like that. So you know, they were they 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:09.240 were doing the best they could to make a living, 0:13:09.280 --> 0:13:12.080 but it's still wasn't as above board as it should 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:17.200 have been. Of course, got so um they were eventually, um, 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:21.000 I guess outlawed by proxy after America started developing like 0:13:21.120 --> 0:13:24.280 food safety laws. They're like, you can't do that anymore. 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:27.640 We're gonna start regulating vendors. And then also dining cars 0:13:27.679 --> 0:13:30.000 came along and that really kind of did that. That 0:13:30.120 --> 0:13:32.319 was the death and all of it. Forget this amazing 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.880 fried chicken being handed to you through a window for 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:38.199 a quarter. Come et in the dining car. We're featuring 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:42.880 British boiled checking for dinner tonight. It's probably right. So, um, 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:46.080 you said something about how these women were robbed and exploited, 0:13:46.120 --> 0:13:49.960 and you know, there's a there's a through line through 0:13:49.960 --> 0:13:52.600 a lot of American history where um, a lot of 0:13:52.640 --> 0:13:57.319 black culture um gets kind of taken over by white culture, 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:02.120 and that the transfer is lost to history or erased 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.199 or blurred, or people just ignore it. So fried chicken 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:08.680 is actually one of those um things. Because if you ask, 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:10.840 like a lot of Americans on the street who invented 0:14:10.840 --> 0:14:14.360 fried chicken, I would guess a significant portion of them 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.640 are going to identify Colonel Sanders as the person who did. 0:14:17.800 --> 0:14:20.120 And he definitely did not. He wasn't even the first 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:24.640 fried chicken restaurant tour, but he was part of a 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:30.040 tradition where while he wasn't stealing directly from the labor 0:14:30.040 --> 0:14:34.280 the intellectual proper you could say, of um, black women. Um, 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.720 he definitely benefited from it big time. There were people 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.080 who were just directly exploiting it. And there was a 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.640 restaurant chain in Salt Lake City that was open in 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:46.840 ve chuck. Yeah, this is one of you know, sort 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:51.640 of the shameful parts of our racism in America. This 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:54.920 is in the nineteen twenties. Uh, And it was you know, 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.160 it was just a time when you had like straight 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:02.920 up racist iconography on mainstream restaurant chains. Uh. And that 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:06.440 was the case with the coon Chicken in had racist 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:11.280 character caricatures on the logo. And it was in birth 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:13.080 of a nation. You know, it was like if it 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.000 makes an appearance in Birth of a Nation, that's like 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.720 the ultimate stamp of racism, of this sort of stereotype 0:15:20.480 --> 0:15:22.440 of what this you know, this great food that was 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:26.960 invented by these enslaved people was then turned on them 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:31.600 and used against them as sort of a stereotype of 0:15:31.600 --> 0:15:33.640 of whatever they wanted to say what they thought black 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:36.720 people were at the time, right, which was basically the 0:15:37.080 --> 0:15:41.040 goal was to debase and demean black people so that 0:15:41.080 --> 0:15:46.440 they wouldn't enjoy full citizenship, either politically, legally or culturally. 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:48.760 And it was we talked about it in our Watermelon 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.480 episode because I mean, like everybody loved watermelons and everybody 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:55.520 loved fried chicken, but the way that the white society 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.560 would point to it to kind of degrade black society was, well, 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.240 we all love it, but Black people really love it. 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.920 They're really crazy for watermelon, they're really crazy for fried chicken. 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:08.120 They'll do anything for it. And it just had this 0:16:08.240 --> 0:16:11.400 kind of um, this this this purpose in this goal 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:15.120 and successfully of of demeaning, they making them seem less 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:19.960 of that even stuff that everybody enjoyed, they enjoyed it differently. 0:16:19.960 --> 0:16:22.720 They were different. They were less somehow, and you know 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:26.280 that was apparently the fried chicken thing in particular was 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:30.400 was first sourced in Birth of a Nation. Alright, so 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:33.880 let's take a break and uh, let's talk about some 0:16:33.960 --> 0:16:38.720 of the more fun parts of fried chicken. How about that? Okay? 0:16:39.360 --> 0:16:54.240 And things stuck? Stuck. I don't know that you know 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:59.880 it stuck. And it's a great name. That's the name 0:16:59.880 --> 0:17:07.919 of It's great with an X. Alright, so fried chicken. Well, 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:11.000 let's talk about chicken in general. Um, it wasn't really 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:16.120 the on the menu of every American who eats meat 0:17:16.160 --> 0:17:19.200 like it is today. Chicken was was a distant third 0:17:19.320 --> 0:17:24.480 to pork and beef for most of our history. Actually, um, 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:28.840 there's some stats here the National Chicken Council. It's pretty fun. Uh. 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:32.520 In nineteen sixty, Americans eight twenty eight pounds of chicken 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.639 per capita, and just a few years ago, in twenty nineteen, 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.440 that number was at ninety seven pounds, whereas red meat 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:42.560 went from one three to one twelve. So you know, 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.639 there there's been a big shift in um or a 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:48.800 shift in the kinds of meats that Americans eat. Uh. 0:17:48.840 --> 0:17:53.760 And you know, chicken farming wasn't as big as beef 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:56.320 and pig farming for a long long time. It's sort 0:17:56.359 --> 0:17:59.080 of a mom and pop thing, until they realized that 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:03.320 people really loved chicken, and we can fortify them with antibiotics, 0:18:03.359 --> 0:18:07.680 and we can get those breasts unnaturally plump and get 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:11.000 build these huge barns to raise them in, and basically like, hey, 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.679 we can factory farm chickens just like we can cows 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.639 and pigs. Yeah, So that that really boosted chicken consumption. 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.359 And by the way, that nine pounds of chicken that 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:24.000 Americans eight in two thousand nine, I think it equaled 0:18:24.040 --> 0:18:29.080 about eleven billion birds um. So the other thing that 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:33.920 happened in addition to cheap, widely available chicken UM were 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:38.879 new cooking techniques and the big cooking technique that really 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:42.040 turned fried chicken from something that took like up to 0:18:42.240 --> 0:18:45.560 twenty minutes to cook correctly UM to something that you 0:18:45.560 --> 0:18:47.960 could sell as fast food where it was just using 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.800 pressure cookers. So they would fry the chicken and a 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:54.000 pressure cooker and still people still do it today, and 0:18:54.080 --> 0:18:56.879 the pressure would change, it would lower the boiling point 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:00.080 of the oil, so the oil could get hotter and 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.840 the chicken would cook faster. And if you did it right, 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:04.679 if you bredded it right, if you use the right 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:07.320 kind of breading, if you did you know, brine your 0:19:07.359 --> 0:19:10.080 chicken and all that first, then you could cook this 0:19:10.119 --> 0:19:13.280 stuff really fast and it would come out really good. Yeah. 0:19:13.480 --> 0:19:17.320 So now Colonel Sanders comes into the picture. Uh. You 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:21.639 can't talk about fried chicken without talking about Harland Sanders. Uh. 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:23.479 And he got a sort of a late start as 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.360 far as his um chicken business goes. At the age 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:31.000 of forty was when he started serving chicken in front 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.120 of the service station he owned in Corbin, Kentucky. Then 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:37.800 opened up a cafe, Sanders Cafe across the street, serving 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:40.719 that skillet fried chicken that I love so much. And 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:44.480 then uh nine, so I guess he was forty nine 0:19:44.560 --> 0:19:49.280 years old he finally develops this eleven secret eleven herbs 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:53.679 and spice recipe cooking in the pressure cooker. Uh. The 0:19:53.720 --> 0:19:58.280 governor gave him his his his fake colonel ship. Uh 0:19:58.320 --> 0:19:59.960 he was he was not an army man. The current 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:03.880 ship was bestowed upon him in an honorary fashion by 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:08.040 the governor of Kentucky. And that's when he started dressing 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:11.119 up like old Connell sandals and his white suit and 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:16.080 his bolow tie and his little white goatee, and and 0:20:16.119 --> 0:20:18.440 a character was all of a sudden born. He became 0:20:18.480 --> 0:20:20.119 more than a man. I read a little bit about him. 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.600 Apparently he had a he was known for two things, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:28.200 had a really really really really foul mouth, and was 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:33.119 a bit handsy, shall we say. Yeah. They described him 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:38.639 as a having a insatiable sexual appetite. And because it 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.280 was you know, the nineteen thirties and forties, would kind 0:20:41.280 --> 0:20:43.480 of come into a room and just be like, hey, hey, 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.560 who can I grab onto? Not kind of thing. Did 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:50.400 not know that part? Yeah, that was? That was That's 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:56.360 the legend. I have a Colonel Sanders story. Let's hear it. 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:01.080 I was driving down the road one day south Troy, Atlanta, 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:04.679 and I um was driving alongside a Buick and the 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:08.239 buick had a Vanity license plate which ties into our 0:21:08.320 --> 0:21:11.600 license plate episode, by the way, and it said KFC 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:15.879 C O L. And in the back uh the I 0:21:15.920 --> 0:21:17.760 don't I never know what that thing is called. But 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.240 the back panel behind the back seat, between that and 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:23.320 the window whatever that like the rear dashboard, I guess 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:26.320 there was a Colonel Sanders bobble head and they pulled 0:21:26.400 --> 0:21:29.320 up closer and closer to the driver. I realized I 0:21:29.400 --> 0:21:33.000 was looking at the man who played Colonel Sanders throughout 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.280 the eighties and nineties, and he, I swear to God, 0:21:36.520 --> 0:21:39.119 was wearing a white suit and a black string tie 0:21:39.320 --> 0:21:41.760 and he was driving down the road in the twenty 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:44.520 one century in America. Yeah, I think it said Bolo 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:47.920 ties that string tie. It's a little different. Okay, that's enough. 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:51.280 But he was the t D actor. Yes, he was 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:54.280 the the Yeah, Colonel Sanders was long dead by this time. 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:56.560 This is the guy who played Colonel Sanders in all 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:59.760 the ads for decades of I mean, I guess it 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:02.000 was him, like, you know, run him off the road 0:22:02.040 --> 0:22:04.560 and interview him. But this is there's just no way 0:22:04.600 --> 0:22:06.760 it wasn't him. It was him. I could tell you 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:09.359 by looking at him, and then you know the other 0:22:09.480 --> 0:22:13.040 kind of evidence. The vanity plaint in the bottle really 0:22:13.119 --> 0:22:16.719 kind of teared it for me. Uh My one favorite 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:19.080 thing that they've done recently in the past few years 0:22:19.080 --> 0:22:21.480 is when they started casting all the different people to 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:26.760 play Colonel Sanders. Oh that was great, wasn't Amy Sadie? She? 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.000 I think she was. I know, I didn't see them all, 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:33.480 but I thought that was a pretty pretty clever little twist. So, 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:35.920 by the way, speaking of Amy Sadaris, this is gonna 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:38.280 come out long after this, but do you know um 0:22:38.400 --> 0:22:42.640 Leslie Jordan's. Yeah, he just passed away yesterday. I'm super 0:22:42.840 --> 0:22:45.800 super gutted about this. Yeah, he was like just this 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.000 great guy. If you knew him on Instagram, he was 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:50.440 really fun and funny and all that. But like favorite 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.560 Instagram accounts, some of the um some of the like 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:55.560 interviews that I'm seeing of him now, and one of 0:22:55.600 --> 0:22:57.840 them was posted by Amy Sadaris where he's talking about 0:22:57.840 --> 0:22:59.920 how like he wanted to live a life of serve 0:23:00.200 --> 0:23:02.680 because you know, taking care of other people like brings 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:05.440 you out of yourself. And he was just this great guy. 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:08.400 Um And if you if you aren't familiar with him, 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:11.480 go look up his Instagram account. And I didn't realize 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:13.280 it at the time, but now I do that the 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:16.480 world like really lost somebody special. So r I p 0:23:17.240 --> 0:23:20.320