Confessions of a Fried Chicken Freak
See why we think homemade fried chicken is finger-licking fantastic.
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The questions I'm always asked when people find out I grew up in
And that's a shame, really. Not that I have anything against KFC (their Famous Bowls notwithstanding), but to the vast majority of people I polled, fried chicken is something they've always gotten from a striped paper bucket rather than hot from their own home kitchen. Why? The mess, it seems. People like my husband who grew up with his mother and grandmother frying up simple, crispy, delicious fried chicken also remember spattering, stinging oil that they'd have to smell and scrub up for days after.
I first encountered this miraculous stuff at the wedding of some close friends several years ago, at a pre-season summer camp they'd rented for the weekend. As the other guests and I lined up for chow in the mess hall the morning of the blessed event, the groom wandered by several times, slightly glazed of eye and muttering a word that consensus soon determined was "bacon." This took none of us by surprise, what with the likelihood of pre-wedding jitters, and his just having written the bacon-centric article for which he later won a James Beard award. Bacon was, as it is for so many of us, his safe and happy place, but when I bit into the audibly crunchy, miraculously juicy, subtly smoky drumstick that had been placed on my plate, I understood what he'd been trying to tell us. He and his bride-to-be had gotten the kitchen staff to cook the morning's bacon in the oil they then used to fry chicken -- which had spent the pre-wedding night lounging about in a buttermilk bath.
Now, as I mentioned, I have nothing against KFC, Popeyes, Church's and the random name knock-offs (Kennedy Fried Chicken, Kansas Fried Chicken, JFK Fried Chicken) that pepper my neighborhood. It was the decadent, grease-laden stuff of neighborhood block parties, picnics in the park, and childhood dinners when Mom was out of town and couldn't protest, and I'll always remember it with great fondness. But that pre-nuptial bird ruined me for chain-restaurant chicken. A commercial kitchen, frying up whole flocks of poultry day in and day out isn't going to take the time to anoint their oil with bacon, bathe it in tenderizing brine or buttermilk, or take any of the small, but meaningful measures that transform bird and flour and oil into the dish that's become such a fundamental part of America's national meal.
I'll admit I've yet to make it by myself at home (though I'm about to try), but rather have thrown myself upon the generosity of friends who've taken the mastery of their own recipes to heart. They fry the chicken, I bring the Lynchburg Lemonade and homegrown tomatoes, and we all sit down to one great cluckin' meal.
(UPDATE: I've made the Wedding Fried Chicken for my friends who have just had a baby and OH MY GOODNESS! Best chicken EVER, and sooooo easy to make.)
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