The Smell of Fried Chicken
Cooking Fried Chicken for Sunday Dinner, Escambia Farms, Florida, 1942, Library of Congress Photo Collection,
September is National Chicken Month. We share this story today to inform our readers on the history of fried chicken and how it has played a major role in shaping American cuisine.
There is something quintessentially home about the smell of fried chicken cooking on a Sunday afternoon in the African American home and in southern homes in general.I suspect however that that labor intensive tradition has died in most families with the older relatives that kept it going. Or perhaps a bucket of KFC and Popeye’s chicken is the smell most children are growing up with today . I realize now that the scrumptious order flowed through and out a home calling people to come eat meant a lot of hard work, love of family, and sweat of women toiling in their kitchens before the advent of central ac or window units.
