Fried Chicken

History

"Fried Chicken" in Martha McCulloch-Williams's "Dishes & Beverages of the Old South" (1913) is a bacon-fat, double-dredged version. Two tender young chickens are cut into joints, wiped dry, seasoned with salt and both red and black pepper, then set on ice. A pound of streaky bacon is fried in a deep skillet and taken out crisp; the chicken is rolled in flour, dipped in beaten egg, rolled again, and laid in fat that "must be bubbling hot, but not scorching," then cooked and turned often to a rich brown.

The often-repeated claim that Scottish immigrants originated the technique of frying chicken rests on no primary source. The writer who popularized it offered no evidence for it, a point the food historian Adrian Miller has acknowledged. What the record does support is that African American women were central to this dish's history in the South, documented as noted sellers of poultry, live or cooked, as early as the 1730s — an independent economy built around it.

That matters particularly in this book. McCulloch-Williams was a white writer born near Clarksville, Tennessee, who grew up on a plantation before the Civil War; her book's dedication is "to our Mammys," and much of the cooking it records is the work of enslaved and formerly enslaved Black women it does not name. A Southern fried chicken recipe printed under her name in 1913 sits inside that history, not outside it.

Ingredients

• 2 tender young chickens
• salt and pepper, red and black
• 1 pound streaky bacon
• flour
• eggs, beaten
• 1 cup cream
• celery, minced
• onion juice
• butter

Instructions

1. Cut two tender young chickens into joints and wipe the pieces dry. Season with salt, pepper, red and black. Set on ice.
2. Fry a pound of streaky bacon in a deep skillet until crisp, then remove. Roll the chicken pieces in flour, dip in beaten egg, then roll in flour again. Lay them in the hot bacon fat, which must be bubbling hot but not scorching. Cook, turning often, until a rich brown. The pieces must not touch while frying, so use two skilletfuls.
3. Once browned, transfer the fried chicken to a pan, set that pan over another containing boiling water, and put all in a very hot oven for fifteen minutes. This cooks the chicken through without making it hard.
4. For the gravy: When all chicken is fried and in the oven, dredge more flour into the fat, stir it well, then add a cup of cream, stirring hard all the time and letting it barely simmer—boiling will curdle it.
5. Alternatively, for a full-cream gravy: Pour off most of the fat, stir cream in double quantity into the skillet to take up the browned bits, then pour into a double boiler. Add pepper, salt, minced celery, a little onion juice, and lumps of butter rolled in flour, one at a time. Cook until thick and rich. Serve in a gravy boat.