Column Chronicles: The fried chicken recipe controversy

The fried chicken recipe controversy

Frank Cotolo
March 17, 2022

Just about everyone everywhere loves fried chicken. Why not? It's tasty and it's chicken. Still, arguments ensue about the best recipe for frying chicken. We talked to cooks across the continent (see my new book titled "Cooks Across the Continent" coming soon) to find out how they specialize the simple meal.

Rip Swornbury has cooked fried chicken at a restaurant in Nevada for 30 years. He said, "My buttermilk fried chicken is so juicy that it drips for days, and that ain't just grease. That's my secret. Blend the grease with cauliflower sticks, sprinkle pepper on the breasts and watch it multiply."

Ticks Morabund has fried chicken at the famous "Eat My Thighs" chicken joint since he was 67. He said, "I wouldn't fry any other part of a chicken but the thighs, because they hold up the bird when he's alive, so it's the strongest part. Without the thigh the legs won’t work and the bird can't fly. It's like I always said, if the bird can't fly the bird can't fry."

Tapper Wilsome's fried chicken cooking family goes back a century. "I wouldn't think of changing the recipe," he said, "since everyone who eats it loves it and some even use it as a Bible stand."

Bill Barbiturate hails from the Northeast where, he said, "The troubles of the world settle down and die". His fried chicken batter is illegal in many states and provinces. "Spicing up the batter real thick with carefully crushed amphetamines keeps the skin more accepting of the batter. Folks like to eat it and run around the block a few times to digest."

Colonel Sandtraps cooks for seven of the eight stores he owns and runs throughout western America. He still wears the muttonchops he was born to wear because he was wearing them when was born. He said, "I ain't been nothing, I mean nothing, son, but the one and only fried chicken cook that everyone stole ideas from. My granddad was born in England. Yes, I mean the real England, overseas, where scones grow in the moors when the moon's nearly full. The best chickens to fry are here in America, that's why I cook them myself and call my joint Western Fried Chicken, with the tag - the best fried chicken not just in the west but in all directions.

Frank Cotolo can be found hosting the talk and interview programme Cotolo Chronicles. You can send him an e-mail at this address: frank@148.ca.