By CHARLES FERRUZZA
The recent news story about the intense security required just to move the 68-year-old hand-written "secret recipe" for Harlan Sanders' fried chicken out of KFC's corporate offices piqued my interest in those legendary "11 herbs and spices."
I hadn't tasted a piece of Kentucky Fried Chicken in years, maybe decades! My father loved the Colonel's chicken, although my childhood memory is that it was already soggy by the time we got it home and when it came out of the red-and-white cardboard bucket, the gummy crust was slipping off the meat. I believe cooking techniques have greatly improved since my youth -- and so has the quality of the competition: Popeye's, Church's, the neighborhood Price Chopper.
To see if the "original recipe" was really worth its enormous value to Louisville-based Yum! Brands (which also owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and A&W Root Beer restaurants), I headed for the KFC at Troost and Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard. The old building, which had stood there for well over two decades, was torn down this summer and replaced, surprisingly quickly, with a modern red structure. All KFC franchisees had been ordered by the corporate offices to update the look of their structures (with new colors, awnings, chairs, lighting) by the summer of 2008 or close their restaurants.
The menu has been expanded, including the number of side dishes like macaroni-and-cheese (which the local Popeye's franchisee, the Eddy family, dropped from a number of their Kansas City locations last year.
I ate a couple pieces of "original recipe" for lunch one day and you know what, I loved it! It was light, crispy, not greasy. I'm still not sure what those secret 11 herbs and spices might be, but I can understand why the owners value the recipe so much.
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I have a weakness for KFC usually submitted to between the hours of 10pm and 2am. Though my chicken of choice is Go Chicken Go down the street from this KFC. By the way I'm almost sure they didn't tear down the building, but merely gave the old one an overhaul.
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