There is going to be an interruption in getting this blog out. I am not sure when that will begin because I am still waiting for a call from my doctor. But the interruption is coming and will last at least two weeks. One must do what one must do. After the interruption, I will be changing some things in my life, one of which I will be avoiding fried foods. As the years have gone by we have gotten further and further away from fried anything. It is kind of a rarity now to have fried meat. But, as I think back to my childhood, everything was fried and everything tasted great.

          My mother was from Kentucky and was a true genius when it came to making fried chicken. I asked her once how she did it and she sang a little song. The tune and words were quite unique.

Take a chicken and kill it

And put it in the skillet

And fry till its golden brown.

That’s southern cookin’

And its mighty fine.

 

Take a K and an E and a N

And a T and a U and a CKY,

That spells Kentucky (eee-haw!)

But it means Paradise

          I suppose there was more to the recipe than that, but I didn’t really care. All I wanted to be sure of was that a golden country fried chicken leg graced my plate every Sunday afternoon. Life was good so long as visions of skillet fried hens danced in my head.

          Then, I got married. Marsha, the city girl, had little knowledge of anything kitchen related. Not surprising, considering her mother was a genuine kitchen hazard. We were pretty safe with grilled cheese sandwiches and we were on solid ground with boiled hot dogs, but beyond that it was a bit dicey. Understand, she is a great cook now. It is hard to believe that it is the same woman who, when first married, thought ’city chicken’ was actually chicken. (For those who don’t know, city chicken is actually small chunks meat, usually pork, that have been either molded into the shape of a chicken leg or held together with a wooden skewer, and then fried. Popular in the so-called Rust Belt, it dates back to the Depression era.)

          Marsha knew my love of fried chicken and she was determined to make my favorite dish for me.

          We had been married for two weeks and were living in Chattanooga, Tennessee where I was in college. I was working midnights in a textile plant across the state-line in Georgia, so it was home from work at 7:30 AM, first class at 8:00 AM, home by 2:00 PM, to bed by 5:00 PM (after a few hours of study) and up and getting ready for work at 9:30 PM. My shift started at 11:00 PM. I normally ate my supper around 10:00 PM.

          We had been to the grocery store for the first time, which is always a milestone in every young married couple’s life. Trying to act grown up. Staying within your budget, looking for deals but not really not knowing what to buy. It is sweet and memorable. But my wife did know that she wanted to purchase a chicken to fry.

          And she did purchase that chicken. She promised me that on the following Monday night I would dine on authentic southern fried chicken.

          On the appointed night, I awoke to the smell of, well, something really bad. Almost as if you had cooked that skunk you found lying on the street. I sat on the edge of the bed and wondered what it was I was smelling. My wife was bustling around in the kitchen humming the tune to the Kentucky chicken song I mentioned above. There was no way I was smelling fried chicken, but it was coming from the kitchen, so what else could it be?

          It was, indeed, the chicken. It was just coming out of the pan as I walked into the kitchen. What a knock-you-off-your-feet smell. But the wife was beaming with pride as she set it down on the table.

          Actually, it looked alright. Maybe a little over done, though still recognizable as chicken. But it was certainly lighting up my sinuses.

          “Mmmmmmm. Baby, that smells good!” Lying never came easy for me, but Marsha didn’t seem to notice. 

          We sat down to eat and I said grace. I seriously wondered if God would consider it blasphemy to say grace over something that smelled so rank, but I prayed anyway. After praying I helped myself to lumpy mashed potatoes, corn, peas and three pieces of that finger-licken’ good chicken. Marsha, on the other hand, shied away from the chicken. She didn’t like poultry to begin with, so I said nothing about that at the time.

          I ate with gusto. What else are you going to do? Married less than two weeks, the wife going to a lot of trouble, her pretty eyes on me to see if I was enjoying. Even though it tasted like it smelled, I shoveled it away like a starving man.

          “How is it, honey? As good as your mom‘s?” Such a sweet voice! Such a sweet face! The love of my life!

          “Sweetheart, I’ll guarantee you that my mother never made chicken that tasted like this.” Of course, that was not a lie. Since I was saying it while I was chewing a piece of chicken and acting like I was really enjoying it, she took it to mean it was better than mom’s.

          Later, when I had to leave work and go to the hospital with food poisoning, I found out what had happened. The chicken was actually spoiled. It came from the store like that.  Marsha said that when she opened the package the smell made her gag. But she assumed that all Tennessee chicken smelled that way.

          Sweet memories!