She said: When I was little, my mom and I would drive to town once a week or so to run errands. Our last stop before heading back to the farm was to swing by the store to grab a week’s worth of groceries. If it was late enough in the day, mom would relent and get us fried chicken from the store’s deli counter for dinner.
Getting takeout may not seem like any big whoop nowadays, but back then it was a triumph, a reprieve from the blah and boring casseroles that constituted our typical supper. I’d pester mom incessantly as we parked the car, and if she said yes to chicken, I’d be ridiculously giddy as I waited seemingly forever for the (barely) automated store doors to slowly swing open so the aroma of fried chicken would smack me in the face. Then I’d rush straight to the deli counter and drum my fingers against the hot glass case where the chicken was kept hot, not lukewarm, by a big bright bulb. Waiting anxiously and bouncing up and down in my kid shoes, with my laces double-knotted, I though it took seemingly forever for the large lady with the hairnet to first pack up a tub of macaroni salad for my mom before she’d slowly, inexorably turn her attention to our box of chicken, with me willing her through the glass to select those beautiful pieces I’d already called dibs on in my mind.
I held that box of fried chicken on my lap the entire eight-mile drive home, the heat from the flimsy origami-like box burning my thighs. But as the pain subsided and the chicken grew lukewarm, my giddiness would inevitably turn to impatience. And with each slow-moving semi-trailer that we got caught behind, my heart would sink lower and lower until it was level with the grease-splattered box in my lap, heavy with the knowing that we were taking too long. Because when we did finally make it home, before I was allowed to tuck into the chicken, Mom would want to unpack the groceries, and then we had to wait for my brother to saunter iin from doing chores, and then there was the interminable wait for my dad to get in from the fields. By then, the chicken skin would long ago be sagging and greasy, the room temperature meat tasteless and tough beneath a layer of congealed fat. And, just like the last time and the time before that, I’d sigh and sit there, pouting and pushing the chicken around on my plate, thinking of what could have been and refusing to eat it even if I was given a stern talking to. If only we’d driven faster, I’d think.
I didn’t know much of anything about cooking back then. Except I knew what I liked. FAnd I knew that some things are meant to be consumed hot. Not lukewarm. Not cold. Hot. As in fried chicken straight out of the fryer. It seemed so darned intuitive, I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t blatantly obvious to everyone else.
There were, on occasion, a few rare instances when my mom took me and my fried chicken to the park a couple minutes drive from B & H Groceries for a picnic. That very same chicken that I’d begrudge other days was suddenly otherworldly with skin that shattered at the slightest touch, releasing a puff of steam and laying naked before me, the glistening beads of oil seeming to wink seductively. Rather than being tough and slimy from sitting in grease, the moist and tender meat gave way from the bone with just the gentlest of tugs. That, to me, was happiness. That is, fried chicken eaten pretty much straight out of the fryer.
I’m not the only one who feels this way. Early in our courtship E and I would camp on the beach out on Maryland’s eastern shore. It was our summertime ritual, one bereft of slimy, tepid fried chicken from an ice-filled cooler. We did, however, partake of our own summery fried chicken ritual, one of a different sort. On our way home, stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic along Route 50, we’d pull off at a certain point just before the Bay Bridge and pull into the parking lot of a tiny roadside joint. Rather than avail ourselves of the drive-in and slink back into traffic a few car lengths behind where we’d been, we’d get out of the truck, stand in line, and take a seat outside at one of the flimsy plastic tables, inhaling exhaust fumes and subjecting ourselves to still more sun.
Had we taken that box of steaming fried chicken back to the truck, we’d have inevitably been distracted by fumbling for coins to pay tolls or being mindful of not getting the steering wheel greasy. Not for us. Fried chicken demands concentration. Respect. Both hands. And timeliness. This wasn’t anything we even had to discuss. E understood without saying a word. That chicken was hot and crisp and moist and perfect. But it wouldn’t be for long.
We married not long after. Some things you just know.
He said: Renee, “inconceivable” is too mild an invective. And Dan Aykroyd’s SNL catch phrase of “Jane, you ignorant —-,” while it still makes me giggle, is unduly heavy-handed for such a wistful remembrance.
I guess all I can say is, “Really? Really?” Loveliness is eating straight-from-the-oil fried chicken so hot it can raise welts on pre-teen thighs? I think not.
“Every food has its temperature, and every temperature has its seasoning,” Julia Child once told me when I interviewed her years ago. Some foods are meant to be eaten hot and have to be seasoned with a judicious hand. Some foods are meant to be eaten cold and have to be more highly seasoned for flavors to come through. And, in true Goldilocks fashion, some food is meant to be eaten warm for the full thwack of flavor—and in my universe that includes chicken pot pies, pizza, and fried chicken.
Simply put, fried chicken that exhales a swirl of steam when the hood of crunchy skin is lifted hasn’t had time to kick back and chill. Literally. It needs the molasses voice of Barry White to slow things down and get it in the groove.
If food is, as they say, all kinds of sexy porn, then the consenting partners that make up fried chicken—the fry mix, the oil, the seasoning, and the bird—need time to be shockingly, wantonly sexually inappropriate. They need to grope, grab, hump, and exchange all kinds of fluids before they reach the height, the pinnacle—do I say it? Do I say it!? DO I SAY IT!!?—the climax of flavor. And that can only happen when the pieces have cooled down to warm, or even room temperature. That’s when the chicken, trying to cover its seared flesh in a coat of buttermilk, flour, salt, and black and cayenne peppers, is shamed by its sudden loss of propriety and becomes vulnerable. Only then can the subtle nuttiness of the fried coating, the pepper’s tingling heat, the almost-there buttermilk tang come through.
Any sooner, and all you have is a mouth full of hot.
And then, of course, you have the contention of coatings. There’s something just plain wrong (sorry, Renee) with a coating so crunchy that it shatters off the meat with the first bite. It’s meant to cling to the chicken until the last mouthful. And I’m sure some food historian can confirm that the true nature of fried chicken coating is thin, not thick and clumpy, (To borrow from Mother Monster, it was born that way, baby.) A light dusting, much like a light spritz of perfume, is far more seductive than layers and layers of flour—or Liz Taylor’s White Diamonds.
I remember when Kentucky Fried Chicken came out with its extra-crispy recipe. I rushed to try it. (Yes, I eat there, too.) After a few mouthfuls, I tossed out my four-piece meal and returned to the siren’s call of the original recipe. The coating was crisp rather than crunchy and the chicken mercifully warm, not hot. So addicted am I to KFC’s original coating that early in our courtship, I’d ask The One to please get me more napkins. And as he trotted away, then filled with the glow of pleasing me, I would strip-mine his chicken of its skin. He returned to a smiling, grease-smeared partner and naked chicken. Nowadays when I ask him to get me more napkins, I’m instructed to get my own coupled with the barb, “You need the exercise.” Or if he indulges me, as he occasionally, does, he takes his tray with him.
In closing, I call into evidence, Picnic Chicken from Round Swamp Farm in East Hampton, the chicken that haunts my reverie. These cold pieces of fetching poultry parts—with crisp not crunchy skin—are heaped into plastic containers, where they slowly warm to room temperature until we arrive at the eponymous spot. Sometimes it’s the beach; other times, the bay; and in times of inclement weather, our waterfront cottage—now, sadly, long gone. And all at once I, The One, our dearest friend Ellen K., and on one occasion our late friend Deborah and her husband John, simultaneously bite into the Barry White-ified bird, all of us moaning like, well, you know what.
That, kiddies, is how you do fried chicken.
Photos © 2008 aptmetaphor and 2008 kusabi. All rights reserved.
David, you know that I like and respect you…..(long pause here)…..but you’ve managed to bury your head firmly up your keester on this one. And ironic, if not downright odd, to find a Massachusettsian (you) suggesting that another Massachusettsian (Julia) might have some insights into how to serve and/or eat what is called….(wait for it here)….SOUTHERN Fried Chicken! Points to Renee, for standing up for all that is good, true, holy. Sent with love and hope for your…soul.
Casner, I forgive you, for you know not what you say. And I know that there are others out there who understand the joy of warm, not blisteringly hot, fried chicken. I can eat it any style–Southern, Asian, Northern, or Martian–as long as it’s warm.
I suppose you also like straight-from-the-oven pizza….
Ah….yep & I’ve got the blisters to prove it. Strangely though, I tend to prefer my ice cubes not just coolish, as you might have it… but cold. Perhaps proving Julia’s point.
(shaking head) Coolish ice cubes? Do they exist?
Casner, thanks for being the voice of sanity. And for invoking that holier than holy word, keester. So well put.
Puh-lease. I can tell you two are in cahoots.
Lukewarm, room temperature, or cold. Anything but from-the-fryer hot, please.
Ah, sanity prevails. Thank you, bethkujawski.
Whenever I have fried chicken straight from the fryer not only do I burn myself but I really can’t taste anything else. I’m not a fan of cold chicken either but when it’s left to rest until it is a nice warm temp, that is when it is at perfection. She is soooo wrong.
Spoken like a true friend, thank you, Gael. (She is so wrong.
Well, on chicken it’s really all about the crust. Hot, warm, cool, it doesn’t matter to me as long as the crust has been cooked to a reddish color, with hints of gold, brown, is shellac stiff and stays crisp from frying in peanut oil (as it did in the 70′s from the boardwalk vender at Ocean City, MD). What needs to be hot is the corn on a stick, dripping with butter and gritty with salt and the Thayer Bros fries where the steam rose from a dousing with malt vinegar. I could hardly decided without a quick eeny-meany-miney, what to bite into first! I’m with you, David regarding a thick coating on chicken. Just…no.
Yes, Soozil: no, no, no!
I must say I am on Renee’s side on this one. I love my fried chicken steaming hot and love eating it while burning both my fingers and my mouth. If you wait too long, the skin is no longer crispy and the fun of eating it diminishes as you no longer hear the crunchiness. Also another important factor here is not just the taste but another sense, the one of the smell, which can be just as important when eating. You want to make sure as you bite every piece the smell of the fried chicken fills your nose. Once the chicken in lukewarm, it loses all its power and is no longer fried chicken but just plain chicken that could have been fried or broiled. Certain foods are supposed to be served steaming hot, and this is one of them! Sorry David!
That’s okay. You have just been removed from my will.
I love steaming hot chicken but the true test is whether it tastes just as good cold.
Traitor.
Ah, a true Southerner speaks out…
Thanks, Renee. Traitor, I’m not. I just see both sides. If that steamy fried bird tastes like a blob of grease when it cools down, well, it loses my vote. It has to taste great hot, warm and cold.
Gotta agree. A great batch of fried chicken should hold up in room temperature, retaining a lot of the great flavor and skin crispiness it has when it’s hot.
David, I already knew I sided with you, but since it had been a while since I indulged in some fried chicken, I was all the more excited to put it to the test today when I went a place known for it. I’m sorry, Renee, but you’re wrong. When it comes to classic, on-the-bone, all-American style fried chicken, it has to be warm or room temp. It’s at that point that you can actually taste the chicken and all the different elements that go into it. It’s still crisp when you bite into it, but the juice doesn’t all burst out in that first bite and you’re not burning hands and mouths.
Pimento, you’re my favorite pepper! Thanks for siding with me. At the Rapture, you’ll be on the side of the right.
No fair invoking deities…
I work at KFC, David, we don’t know what the original recipe is, as it comes ready to use, but the main ingredients are on the bag as per CDN ingredient rules. Flour, salt, MSG, garlic are all mentioned. Mostly MSG lol. Secret herbs and spices are next in small amounts. Looks to me like just flour with MSG, salt, and a little bit of granulated garlic when you really look at it with tiny flecks of pepper type seasoning.
Shirley, thanks for the heads up. A friend who’s working with me on a fried chicken recipe was positive KFC had a lot of MSG, and she was right! I haven’t eaten it in a long time, but now I’ll look at it with even more suspicion.
David, thank you for the story. I find fried chicken to be more flavorful at just above room temperature. For me, I’ll take food that has “rested” a bit after cooking, every time.
James, my pleasure. It seems as if you’re a sane man who know the proper way to eat fried chicken! Ha!