In March I mentioned if you ever wanted to buy me food, sushi or fried chicken would be best. I should specify good fried chicken, with the meat on the bone. Pieces parts mashed into a “tender” or a “nugget” is not fried chicken. And I am not talking the Tabasco-sauce flavored Bojangles or the overhyped, overspiced Kentucky Fried Chicken. Supermarket versions are dried-out failures dreaming of being true fried chicken but ended up in a nightmare of heat lamps. Church’s and Bush’s are tolerable to very good depending on the day, cook, and my desperation.
If you are in Charlotte, the peanut-oil cooked Price’s Chicken Coop is the best.
I could wax poetic about fried chicken, or you can just listen to Queen’s One Vision – “One flesh, one bone, one true religion.” Hmmm. Fried Chicken.
So why does Price beat out KFC and Bo-time? The perfect crunch.
The perfect cook too. The wonderful nutty, buttery, taste of fat-chained polymers after deep frying. Price’s has it down to a mass-produced science. Price’s fortunately for my waistline is 45 minutes away, awkward to get to, has no parking, and is not a eat-in restaurant.
Inverse Science did an excellent write up about the chemistry of creating Fried Chicken and the biology of why we like eating fried chicken on June 20, 2017: The Noisy Science of Why Crispy Fried Chicken is Delicious. Watch it and geek about science and food at the same time!