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I think I can truthfully say I haven't had real homemade fried chicken since I lived at home. For my grandmother (dad's mother), it was a Sunday dinner ritual and we probably ate her fried chicken at her place on Sunday more times than at any other place, though my mom and everyone else made it as well, so who knows. I have memories of it sizzling in the pan, and at home I'm pretty sure we had an electric skillet for it. Our entire family then, on both my mom's and dad's sides, were the classic chicken-on-Sunday Midwesterners.
Memorable fried chicken moments elsewhere: 1. It later became a more common thing to go out for Sunday dinner at this nice family style restaurant in Bexley (Ohio) called Willard's, and I'm pretty certain that having the chicken was de rigueur. (Oddly, I became enamored of their Chicken Gizzards and Hearts dinner, something I haven't ventured near at any time thereafter.) 2. On a family road trip around 1960 from Ohio to Florida, or vice versa, we stopped and ate lunch at the original Colonel Sanders restaurant in Kentucky. Only time we were ever there. 3. Later in the early-mid 1960s, living in Florida, there was a restaurant in Miami that was known for their fried chicken, and we went there a few times. (One or more of those visits could have been in conjunction with going to see a roadshow film in Miami Beach.) My most striking memory of that place is of their individual finger bowls.
Other than those early times, fried chicken for me has been whatever's around. I think for years I didn't bother with it, but during my last couple of years in L.A. I started bringing some home from the Pioneer Chicken on Sunset Blvd. (near Famous Amos), thinking that would be better than KFC or whatever. Whether it really was, I couldn't say, but I always enjoyed it. (Also really liked El Pollo Loco, but that isn't a regular fried chicken like these others.)
Nowadays KFC is the most common for us. We like it and it's convenient and we usually bring home a large bucket. Kristi is nuts over their double crispy so that's our usual. I never had Popeye's until just a few years ago. They weren't in Connecticut, and the only time I was around one was at a couple of the service plazas on the NY Thruway. I found it good but not all that exceptional then, but when we finally got one here in town just a couple of years ago, I was able to learn what's distinctive about them. Stew Leonard's now has their own recipe of fried chicken which is very tasty, and it can be nice to just grab a couple of pieces from there.
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Topic: THE DINGING AND THE RINGING AND THE DISAPPEARING DAY AND NIGHT (Read 6469 times)