A few major technological advances in the 20th century changed American fried chicken forever.
| Channel | Publish Date | Thumbnail & View Count | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|
 ChefSteps | 2020-11-05 19:31:13 |  1,539,453 Views |
Fry Fidelity: The Science of Fried Chicken
If you were to draw a family tree for fried chicken the McNugget wouldn’t appear until one of the outer layers of leaves. Along the way you’d draw something called the Russian Wheat Deal and a gentleman named Rene Arend during World War II. But as far along as the McNugget is you’d still have to go a little further to see the sky because the McDonald’s icon was just the first generation in a long line of boneless poultry products that have redefined the way we eat chicken.
American fried chicken on the bone is as old as the Thirteen Colonies thanks in large part to chicken-frying Scottish immigrants who settled in the southern colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Southern tradition was carried on by African slaves who “were allowed to own chickens” Dr. Kym Rice wrote me in an email.
Rice is director and chair of museum studies at George Washington University and has written extensively on slavery and African American life in the antebellum South. According to Rice "slaves managed [chickens] and sold the eggs back to the slaveholder and other whites in their neighborhoods." When the chickens became too old to lay eggs the slaves fried the birds in lard.
