Fried chicken

• 1. Introduction

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  Fried chicken appears in a diary entry from 1773, and the place is not Georgia or Tennessee. It is the Isle of Skye, off the coast of Scotland. The writer describes a plate of chicken fried in fat, a dish most people now link to the American South. Fried chicken is simple to describe. Pieces of chicken are coated in seasoned flour or batter, then cooked in hot fat until the outside turns crisp and the meat stays juicy. Behind that simple idea sits a tangle of questions. Who first fried chicken this way, and on which continents? Why did a dish so tied to Southern tables turn out to be a rarity for many of the people who shaped it? How did it travel from Sunday kitchens to restaurant chains around the world? And what does a plate of it do to the body? The answers begin with a pair of cookbooks and a pot of palm oil.

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• 2. Two Old Traditions

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  Long before anyone fried a drumstick, the first dish known to have been deep-fried was the fritter, a favorite of the European Middle Ages. Chicken came later. The earliest recorded deep-frying of chicken in fat with breadcrumbs and seasonings belongs to the Scottish. The evidence is a recipe in a 1747 cookbook by Hannah Glasse. An English book from 1736, Nathan Bailey's Dictionarium Domesticum, also mentions the dish, though it calls it "a marinade of chickens". West Africa supplies the second root. Many West African peoples kept their own traditions of seasoned fried chicken, battering the pieces and cooking them in palm oil. The Scottish version used lard, and the African version brought a different set of seasonings. In the American South, the two met. Enslaved Africans applied African seasoning techniques in Southern kitchens, which is why the region's fried chicken is traced to both cuisines. The first known American recipe actually lacked the seasonings of the earlier Scottish one. The name itself arrived late. The expression "fried chicken" was first recorded in the 1830s, and by the 1860s and 1870s it showed up often in American cookbooks.

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• 3. A Dish Held Back

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  Popular belief pictures fried chicken as an everyday food in African-American households, but the record points the other way. Because the ingredients were expensive, it was a rare dish, kept for special occasions, much as it had been in Africa. Poultry did offer one opening. As early as the 1730s, enslaved and segregated African-American women became known as sellers of poultry, sold live or cooked. That trade gave them a measure of independent income, although the cooking in those early sales was done on a griddle. Chickens mattered for a practical reason. Most enslaved people could not raise costly meats, yet they were generally allowed to keep chickens. As the slave trade brought Africans to work on southern plantations, enslaved people also became the cooks. Frying chicken on special occasions carried on in these communities for generations. It persisted especially through the years of segregation, when most restaurants were closed to Black customers.

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• 4. From Sunday Table to Global Chain

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  After the abolition of slavery, American-style fried chicken gradually became an ordinary Southern dish. Two practical facts helped it spread. It traveled well in hot weather, which mattered before refrigeration was common. Later, industry growth lowered its cost. The South still counts it among the top choices for Sunday dinner. Southern Jews folded it into their own traditions, and it became a mainstay of Shabbat dinners alongside charoset and braided loaves of challah. Independence Day and other gatherings often put it on the table. The twentieth century then turned it into a business. Restaurant chains built around fried chicken rose with the fast food boom. Kentucky Fried Chicken, known as KFC, and Popeyes grew across the United States and then across the world. KFC's original recipe leaned on one particular cooking method, and that method is worth a closer look.

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• 5. The Right Bird

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  Today the choice of bird is easy, since broiler chickens are most commonly used. It was not always so. Before industrial chicken production and the creation of broiler breeds, only young spring chickens, either pullets or cockerels, could handle the high heat and quick cooking of frying. That made fried chicken a luxury of spring and summer. Older birds were tougher and needed long cooking at lower temperatures. Cooks sometimes solved the problem by simmering such a bird until tender, letting it cool and dry, and only then frying it. Modern cooks also rarely fry a chicken whole. They cut it into pieces first. The breast and wings from the front of the bird count as white meat. The thighs and the legs, called drumsticks, from the rear count as dark meat. The breast is usually split in two and the back is usually thrown away. Chicken fingers, boneless strips cut from the breast, are another common choice.

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• 6. Coating and Crust

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  Buttermilk plays a quiet role in many kitchens. Cooks often dip or marinate the pieces in it before coating, because its acidity tenderizes the meat. The coating itself is usually a flour-based batter, which may contain eggs or milk. Some cooks dredge the pieces in flour or breadcrumbs instead. Salt, black pepper, chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, or onion powder can go into the flour. The crust forms as the chicken cooks. Moisture that seeps out of the meat is absorbed by the coating, and it browns along with the flour. The result is the flavorful shell that gives the dish its crunch. Lard is the traditional fat for frying, though corn, peanut, canola, soybean, and other vegetable oils are also common. Three main techniques use that fat, and each handles heat in its own way.

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• 7. Three Ways to Fry

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  Pan frying, also called shallow frying, calls for a sturdy pan and enough fat to reach partway up the chicken without covering it. The fat starts hot enough to seal the outside of the pieces without browning them. Once the chicken goes in, the cook lowers the heat. Cooks disagree about turning. One camp turns the pieces often for even browning. The other lets them render skin side down and turns them only when needed. Near the end, the heat goes up to brown the chicken, and some cooks add a little butter to help. The browned moisture stuck to the bottom of the pan, called the fonds, becomes the base for gravy. Deep frying submerges the pieces completely in hot fat, which is held at a constant temperature the whole time. The third method uses a pressure cooker. Moisture inside the chicken turns to steam and raises the pressure, so the cook must lower the temperature. The steam cooks the meat through while the coating stays crisp. KFC's original recipe used this method, which the Broaster Company marketed as "broasting".

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• 8. Cousins and Variants

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  The phrases "country-fried" and "chicken-fried" stretch the idea to other foods. They usually describe a boneless, tenderized piece of meat that is floured or battered, then cooked in the same ways and often served with gravy. Chicken-fried steak is the best-known example. Whole regional dishes have grown from the base recipe too. In Barberton, Ohio, Serbian immigrants created a version known as Barberton chicken, or "Serbian fried chicken", which has spread across the state. Around Nashville, Tennessee, hot chicken is pan-fried and coated with a paste of lard and cayenne pepper. Soul food restaurants in the American South and beyond serve chicken and waffles, a single platter that joins breakfast and dinner foods. Korean fried chicken grew into a popular cuisine after U.S. military presence introduced deep-fried chicken following the Korean War. Popcorn chicken, sold as small battered morsels of boneless meat, shrinks the dish to a snack.

  Fried chicken has a reputation for grease, especially when it comes from fast food outlets. Some of its fans reportedly ration themselves to a set number of servings a year to keep their fat intake in check. The numbers vary by cut. Wings carry the most fat, at almost 40 g for every 100 g. An average whole fried chicken holds only around 12% fat, which is 12 g per 100 g. A 100 g portion supplies roughly 240 calories. Researchers have looked at longer-term effects as well. A 2019 prospective cohort study of postmenopausal women found that eating at least one serving of fried chicken a week was associated with a 13% increase in the risk of dying from any cause. The same study linked it to a 12% increase in the risk of cardiovascular death, compared with women who ate none.

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